


Here For You

by Birch66724



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bellarke, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, bellarke AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 23
Words: 57,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24032491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birch66724/pseuds/Birch66724
Summary: Clarke has been looking forward to college for years, but nothing seems to be going the way she thought it would. After a traumatic experience, she doesn't know what to do or who she is anymore. Luckily, Bellamy lives just one floor below and is determined to help her through the rough times.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Monty Green/Harper McIntyre, Octavia Blake/Lincoln
Comments: 25
Kudos: 141





	1. Chapter 1

"Ma'am! You cannot park your car here, this is where the campus bus pulls up," said a man, clad in his blue campus police uniform.

"We just need to unload." Abby shouted, heaving a suitcase out of the trunk.

"I will write you a ticket if you don't move this car, immediately!" he said, more firmly.

"Just move the car, Mom." Clarke grumbled, embarrassed.

"Okay, okay! Just get this one heavy basket- oh!" The handle of the basket snapped and varies things went tumbling across the blacktop.

"Mom! Just move the car! I'll pick this up," Clarke insisted, pushing Abby towards the driver's side.

"Okay! I'll be just a minute," Abby said with a pointed glare at the officer. Clarke hurried to scoop the bottles of lotion and shampoo into the basket as her Mom drove the blue Civic into the lot.

"So sorry about her," Clarke apologized, flustered.

"No problem. Move in week is always hectic." The officer picked up the finale item: Clarke's favorite green Nalgene bottle.

"Thanks," She offered the older man a smile. He returned the gesture, his sun-wrinkled face kind.

Clarke scooped up the broken basket under one arm and pulled the suitcase along behind her as she approached the residence hall. She paused in front of the door, looking up to see the silver lettering on the outside of the brick building. Frontier Hall. This is it.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed through the doors and was greeted by a blast of cool air, a welcome reprieve from the hot August day outside. The entrance to the Hall held a reception desk, which was currently empty, and a small lounge area. The elevator was directly across from the doors.

Clarke punched the up button and stood back to await the car. The Hall smelled… homey, like Tide laundry detergent and new carpet. Clarke smiled. It was finally happening! She was at college!

"Hey, going up?" A boy asked, crossing the lobby to the elevator.

Clarke nodded.

"Perfect. Moving in, I see?" He observed, leaning casually against the wall above the elevator button.

"Yep." Clarke confirmed, unsure of what else to say. He was attractive, she realized, although she wasn't particularly fond of long hair on boys, it worked for him.

The elevator luckily arrived before the moment got too awkward for Clarke, dinging as the door slid open and a trio of boys hurried out.

"Murphy, you asshole!" One of them shouted, bumping Clarke in his haste. Startled, the broken basket started to slip out of her hands.

"Woah!" The long-haired boy reached out to steady it.

"Sorry!" Someone called back over their shoulder as they burst out the door, into the bright summer sun.

"Thanks," Clarke hurried to say to the long-haired boy, sparing a glance at the disappearing offenders.

"Let me take this for you. I bet you're going to the fourth floor?" He said, pressing the 4 button without waiting for her response.

"How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess." he grinned lopsidedly and Clarke felt her heart flutter. "I'm Finn, by the way." He shifted Clarke's basket onto his hip and offered her a handshake. Clarke took his hand, trying unsuccessfully not to notice how large and warm him fingers were.

"I'm Clarke," she smiled at him, dropping his hand and unconsciously wiping her palm on her jean shorts. "Do you live here? In Frontier, I mean?"

"Nah, I go to St. John's. Couldn't get into the University of Minnesota."

"Oh!" Clarke didn't know what to say. "I've heard good things about- about St. John's." She had never heard of that school in her life.

"It's alright, though they don't have nearly as many pretty girls over there as they do here." Finn said, smirking at Clarke with shining dark eyes. "Which room you headed to?" he asked, easily stepping out of the elevator as it opened on the fourth floor.

"Uh, 12. 412." Clarke told him, pulling the suitcase over the ridges of the elevator door track, hurrying to keep up with Finn as her stomach filled with butterflies.

Finn's face fell for a second, but then he regained his composure. "Right by the elevator, nice."

"Yeah." Clarke agreed, following him down the carpeted hall, unsure what to say. Flirting was never her strong suit.

The walls were lined with boxes and odd pieces of furniture like microwaves and chairs and even a full futon. Music flowed out of an open door farther down the hall. Handmade welcome signs adorned each door, and several had little whiteboards with messages scribbled on them in blue Expo marker. It looked like a college dorm. It was a college dorm. The thought made Clarke smile again.

"412." Finn said, rapping his knuckles on the door.

Welcome to the U of M, Clarke G and Raven R! the maroon and gold sign read. The little golden gopher mascot stood in the corner of the paper, holding up a foam finger and grinning with its little buck teeth.

The door swung open, revealing a tan skinned, dark haired girl. She grinned out from the room, not seeing Clarke past Finn.

"Finn!" she cheered, planting a kiss on the boy's mouth. "I didn't know you were coming by today, my roommate's supposed to be here soon." she said, rocking back on the balls of her feet. Clarke blinked at her, glad Raven hadn't noticed her yet so she had time to wipe the expression of surprise off of her face.

"Here," Finn gestured to Clarke. "Found her in the elevator."

"Hi," Clarke said with a friendly expression. At least she hoped she looked friendly.

"Welcome home!" Raven said, stepping back from the door and sweeping her arm into the dorm. "I already picked the left side, hope you don't mind. Doesn't make much of a difference though, we'll be on top of each other either way. Looks smaller in person than it did on the housing website, doesn't it?" Raven said, leading the way into the dorm.

Clarke made a sound of agreement. It did indeed look smaller in person than in the photos. Raven had her bed on the left side of the room made up with a dark blue comforter. She has various boxes and bags strewn around on her bed and desk, but Clarke's side of the room remained untouched. The bare mattress sat on its plain wood frame and desk situated at the foot of the bed looked new.

It edge of the desk narrowly missed the frame of the door inside the room, which lead to the shared bathroom.

"The other two aren't here yet." Raven informed her, stepping aside to let Finn into the room. He placed Clarke's basket down gingerly on the mattress.

"We should head out, let Clarke get settled. Wanna go for subs, Rav?" Finn asked, fiddling with his belt loops and looking as if he'd rather be anywhere else at the moment.

Raven frowned. "I suppose. Need help carrying anything in, Clarke?"

"No, no. My mom is here to help," she told Raven.

"Okay, well, I feel bad to just meet you and ditch."

"Don't worry about it! I'm sure we'll be spending plenty of time together." Clarke assured Raven, not really wanting Finn to stick around. The air in the room was tinged with awkwardness.

"Alright. See you in a few," Raven grabbed her phone off her bed and slipped out the door. Finn made eye contact with Clarke before he followed his girlfriend down the hall and Clarke felt her cheeks redden.

"Great. My roommate's boyfriend has infidelity problems," Clarke muttered, feeling guilty. Raven seemed nice though. Maybe Clarke could just forget that Finn ever said anything to her and move on.

Clarke let out a deep breath and patted the tops of her thighs, nodding as she took in the space once more. "College, here we go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I just want to say a few things before we get into the story. I have never written something like this before. This story is not happy, at least not for awhile. There are going to be some sensitive topics. I will label chapters that some people may find troubling or offensive. I just want to give fair warning to everyone before they start reading.
> 
> Also, this is my first story on Archive of Our Own. I have posted this story on Fanfiction.net as well.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and please don't hesitate to leave me your thoughts, questions, comments or concerns! Thanks,
> 
> -Birch66724


	2. Chapter 2

After a teary goodbye with her mother, Clarke flopped down on her freshly made bed. Teary on Abby's part that is. But now, after watching her mother drive off, all the way back to Oregon, leaving Clarke here in Minnesota knowing not a soul, tears were welling up in her own eyes.

What if college wasn't everything she had dreamed about it being for years? What if Raven decided to hate her? Clarke groaned and squeezed shut her eyes. Two fat droplets pushed their way out, leaving trails down Clarke's temples. She took a deep breath and lay with her eyes closed, trying to feel nothing.

Gnawing anxiety was writhing in the pit of Clarke's stomach. She let herself wallow in it for a few moments more before sitting up, swallowing down the rest of her tears and setting her resolve.

"Okay, let's get this place cleaned up a bit," she said aloud, letting herself hear her own voice. She set some music playing and started to stack her clothes into the drawers built in under her bed. That took a decent amount of time, unpacking everything from the suitcase and cardboard box, refolding most of it, then laying it neatly in the pine fragranced drawers.

Once satisfied with her clothing, Clarke moved on to her other belongings, like her notebooks and laptop, pencils and backpack. She lined the papers up neatly on the small desk, jamming her arm down behind the bed to plug in her computer cord. She added a small lamp on the desk before stepping back with a satisfied sigh. The yellow glow from the lamp made the room more homey, especially now that it was getting dusk outside.

After a bit more tidying, Clarke stacked the empty boxes by the door, completing the task she set out to do.

Just as her mind turned to what she should do for supper, the door swung open.

"Yeah, see you, well- I'll let you know," Raven stood sideways, calling down the hall to Finn. "Yep, love you too, bye now."

Raven shut the door behind her with an exaggerated sigh. Clarke gave her an amused look.

"Looks great in here," Raven commented, rubbing her temples.

"Thanks," Clarke said.

"Should I have knocked before I opened the door? Do you have to knock on your own door?"

"I don't think so. I mean, you live here, too," Clarke said.

"Fair enough. I can show you where to get rid of these boxes," Raven offered, nudging a box in the middle of the room with her foot.

"That'd be good. Hey, do they have somewhere to eat in the building? I'm starving."

"Oh, yeah! They do, I ate there last night. Wasn't half bad," Raven stooped and picked up a box.

"Perfect, let me grab some money quick." Clarke slid a ten out of her wallet before picking up the two remaining boxes and following Raven into the hallway.

"So, tell me about yourself," Raven prompted, hitting the elevator button with her knee. Of course, they knew a few basic facts about each other from the housing website, but they hadn't really talked much.

"Well, I'm from Sandy, Oregon, which is about 30 minutes East of Portland. Uh, I lived with my mom, I don't have any siblings and my dad was killed in a car accident about 4 years ago now." Clarke said.

Raven gave her a soft smile. "I'm sorry to hear."

"Thanks. How about you?" They stepped into the elevator.

"Well, I'm from St. Paul, so I didn't get very far," Raven chuckled a bit. "But uh, I don't have too much for family either. Finn's about all I got. My dad, well, skipped town when I was young and my Mom's a junkie, so can't count on her."

Clarke didn't know what to say. Should she apologize? Would that make sense?

"But, luckily, Finn's family lived in the apartment next to mine, so I spent most of my time over there. His mom always wanted more kids but she could have any. I think she had uterine cancer or something. Anyways, she took me in, made sure I was fed and made it to school on time, stuff like that."

"That's good. That they took you in, I mean, not that your mom is…"

Raven chuckled again. "Yeah. I don't know where I'd be without them. Finn especially. We just sort of grew closer over the years."

"That's nice."

"Yeah," The elevator jolted to a stop in the lobby. Raven led the way off, then out the front doors of Frontier Hall.

"How about you? Got a boyfriend back home, Clarke?"

"Nah, I don't," Clarke told her, tossing the cardboard up into a large green recycling bin standing beside the building.

"Aww, c'mon. There's someone!" Raven teased. Clarke laughed at her, shaking her head as they went back inside.

"I swear there isn't."

"Alright," Raven relented. They walked past the desk, down a short hall, and into an open lounge area. There were couches and a ping pong table and a TV on one side, with tables and chairs and vending machines on the other. Along the back wall was a counter with a cooler and menu board.

"I had the tomato basil wrap last night, it was alright," Raven said, examining a chocolate chip cookie from the counter before buying it from a bored looking boy with acne.

Clarke selected a plain turkey sandwich from the cooler and a bag of chips for herself.

They sat at a table and started to talk. Conversation started to flow easily after a few moments as they got to know each other a bit better. Clarke had always thought of herself as clumsy in conversation, especially with new people, but Raven was easy to talk to.

Occasionally when the topic of Finn would come up, Clarke would feel a snag of guilt. She had been flirting with her roommate's boyfriend in the elevator... She pushed it down though with the simple promise of 'never again'.

It was easy to see how much Finn meant to Raven, He was her whole family, her whole world. He was her lifeboat when she was sinking, providing a home and a mother and love. They had a type of bond that went far beyond that of love, and Clarke smiled to think of something so strong as that.

Clarke told Raven about her mother, how she was a leading doctor at OHSU Hospital in Portland. She told Raven how she spent a decent portion of her weeknights home alone as her mother was frequently wrapped up in something at work and opted to just stay over at the hospital.

After awhile they moved on from more serious family topics and swapped stories from high school, laughing up a storm. When Raven told of a boy who drove his snowmobile into the building last winter, Clarke had tears of laughter in her eyes as Raven's impersonation of the principal's reaction.

"Dylan! I told you! Bring that God damned machine onto school property, I'd suspend you!" Raven stood up and held her arms out, trying to mimic the Principe's hulking figure. She used a hilariously deep voice and Clarke was rocking back and forth, struggling to breathe.

Anyone who walked into the lounge would have thought that Raven and Clarke were lifelong friends.

Finally, after about 2 hours, Clarke was yawning.

"I bet you're tired," Raven said, catching Clarke's contagious yawn. She stood up and stretched her lean body.

"Yeah, I spent too many hours in the car today. Funny how you can get so exhausted when all you did was sit there."

"Yeah." Raven threw away their trash, which had been sitting on the table for several hours now.

"What are the other two girl's names?" Clarke asked as they made their way back to their dorm.

"Uh, Harper and- Oh God what is it?"

"I don't know, that's why I'm asking you." Clarke teased. Raven mock scowled and shoved Clarke with an arm. She just laughed.

"Octavia!"

"Octavia." Clarke repeated. "Sounds like something rich people would name their kid."

"Sort of does, doesn't it?" Agreed Raven.

"I'm sure they'll be nice though. I was so scared that I was going to get stuck with a weirdo or someone mean for a roommate, but you seem alright, I guess." Clarke laughed.

"Oh, alright? That's all I get?"

"Yep."

It was almost nine pm and Clarke was ready to go to bed.

"I shower at night." she told Raven, digging through her drawers to find some pajama shorts and a t-shirt.

"Perfect. I only shower in the morning. I cannot sleep with wet hair."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it's awful. Makes my whole head feel cold and then your pillow gets wet. No thank you." Raven scrunched up her nose in distaste.

"Hmm. I guess. I just like to feel clean when I sleep." Clarke said.

Raven nodded and yawned again. Clarke brought her pajamas and shampoo into the bathroom and took a hot shower. She was surprised that the shower was nice with decent water pressure and no visible mold growing in the corners. By the time her teeth were brushed and her damp hair was braided back, she was feeling renewed hope for college and Raven.

She climbed into bed, turning to face the wall. Raven was watching something on her computer, but she turned the brightness down when Clarke shut out her lights.

"Goodnight," she whispered across the room.

"Goodnight, Raven." Clarke whispered back, falling easily into sleep. Thankfully, Raven didn't snore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I don't go to the U of M, nor have I been there, so some things are bound to be inaccurate. I don't know if any of you have been there either, so perhaps it doesn't matter, but I just wanted to put that out there. :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> -Birch66724


	3. Chapter 3

"Ope, I'm sorry!"

Clarke groggily blinked awake. Early morning sunlight filtered around the window blind, patterning the room in splotches and lines of yellow light. A blond haired girl stood in the bathroom doorway.

Clarke propped herself up on an elbow and rubbed her face.

"What's up?" Raven croaked from her bed across the room, her voice thick with sleep.

"Didn't mean to wake you up, so sorry." The girl apologized, shutting the bathroom door behind her and retreating into the adjoining dorm.

"Harper or Octavia?" Raven asked Clarke.

Clarke considered it. "I'm thinking Harper."

"Mm, I'm going to have to go Octavia, then." Raven said through a yawn. Clarke flopped back down in bed. She closed her eyes and listened to Raven get up and shuffle around the room.

"Shit!" Raven hissed out a curse.

"Raven?" Clarke sat up, concerned.

"Just stubbed my toe," Raven grumbled, hopping on one foot.

"Klutz." Clarke teased. Raven gave her the middle finger.

"Who the hell moves into their dorm at 6:30?" Raven muttered, sitting back down on the edge of her bed.

Clarke chuckled without opening her mouth, huffing little puffs of air out her nose. "Harper does, apparently."

"You mean Octavia?"

"No, I'm right. I know it's Harper."

"Wanna bet?"

"One dollar," Clarke stuck her hand out from under her quilt to shake on it.

"You're on," Raven pumped her hand, tugging her upright in the bed. "Get up, let's go introduce ourselves."

"Mmm," Clarke groaned, stretching luxuriously before following Raven through the bathroom, into the adjoining dorm. Clarke's bare feet felt cold on the white tiled floor. She wrapped her arms around her sleep t-shirt and ran a hand through her hair.

"Hey! Hi," The blond girl stood up straight from where she was crouched in front of her mattress. "I am so sorry, I didn't mean to wake you guys up." Her face looked genuinely apologetic.

"S'no problem." Clarke said, then yawned.

"Nice to meet you." Raven said, stepping into the room. "I'm Raven Reyes."

"And I'm Clarke Griffin," Clarke waved from behind Raven.

"Nice to meet you both!" The girl said brightly, smiling wide. "I'm Harper. McIntyre. Harper McIntyre."

"A ha!" Clarke said, grinning victoriously at Raven.

Raven groaned.

Harper looked confused. Raven explained, "Clarke and I made a bet on whether you were Octavia or Harper. Clarke won."

"One whole dollar," Clarke bragged and Harper gave an amused smile.

"Stop touching me!" Two boys tumbled into the room, fighting over a lamp.

"Hey, Ian, Luke, no!" Harper scolded, snatching the lamp from their hands. The two boys were carbon copies of one another, and they looked just like Harper. Blond hair and blue eyes and fair skin.

"Luke wouldn't let me carry it!" One boy whined, crossing his arms. The other one shoved him.

"Luke, no. Go back down to the car." Harper ushered them out of the dorm. Clarke watched, amused.

"Sorry. Identical twin seven-year-olds. Can't say I'll miss them fighting every second of every day." Harper rolled her eyes.

Clarke chuckled. "Why don't you finish settling in, and we can catch up afterwards?"

"Sure! I'll let you know."

"Cool, see ya!" Raven said, retreating. Clarke gave Harper a wave and shut the bathroom door behind her.

A few hours later, Harper's family had left and the three of them were walking around campus together, trying to get a sense of things.

Harper told them about her family; in addition to her twin seven-year-old brothers, she had two additional brothers, ages ten and fourteen, and one little sister, who was five. She grew up just North of Duluth, Minnesota, in Two Harbors. Her parents owned and operated a pharmacy and she graduated high school with honors, and planned to study education with the hopes of one day teaching either middle school or high school.

Raven told her about her plans to study mechanical engineering and a bit of her backstory, but not with as much detail as she had shared with Clarke the previous night.

Clarke told Harper about her family and hometown and her plans to study pre-med, although she wasn't exactly sure what she wanted to do yet.

They got lunch and chatted, then located some of their buildings of classes which started the following week. Harper seemed like a sweet, gentle kind of person.

It was late afternoon by the time the trio returned to their dorm.

"All I'm saying is, if he had worn deodorant, no one would have hated him that much."

"Raven!" Harper chastised through laughter.

"Looks your roommate is here, Harper." Clarke said, looking at the light spilling out of Harper's open room.

"Oo, good! She said she was coming tomorrow, though." Harper said, entering the room. Clarke looked at Raven, who shrugged, and followed Harper.

"Oh, jeez. Hey guys." A black haired girl was standing with one hand on her hip, the other was rubbing her forehead.

"Hi Octavia! Nice to finally meet you." Harper said.

Octavia put on a smile and the two girls embraced. Octavia looped her thin, tan arms around Harper, pulling her close like an old friend. Clarke and Raven introduced themselves.

"What's the matter? Need help with something?" Harper asked, scrutinizing the creases between Octavia's eyes.

"No, no," she shook her head, then added harshly, "My brother is just being an f-in' idiot."

"Oh. They'll do that sometimes." Harper said, walking unconcerned over to her nightstand as Octavia aggressively tapped out a message on her phone.

"I've got to go down to his dorm," she rolled her eyes. "Why don't we meet up in an hour or something?" She turned to Clarke and Raven.

"Sure."

"Alright. Hopefully I can avoid being yelled at." she made a face and slipped out the door. Clarke watched her go before turning back to Harper.

"Her brother goes to the U of M, too?"

"Yeah." She stopped what she was doing and tipped her head back. "For the life of me I can't remember his name. It's something… something like Bentley or Brendan or something. Kind of a weird name." Harper frowned.

"Hmm."

"I'm going to catch a nap," Raven said, leaving through the bathroom door. Clarke stayed in Harper's room, continuing to chat. Harper was appalled when Clarke told her she had never seen The Office before, and insisted they watch it. Clarke agreed and made it through two episodes before she dozed off.

Octavia returned a couple of hours later, and the four roommates got dinner at the campus dining hall, which opened for the first time this semester today.

Octavia told them she was from Chaska, Minnesota, but she didn't share any details about her family and Clarke didn't want to press. She was undecided about her major right now, but it didn't seem to bother her much. Octavia seemed bold and brass, swearing every other sentence and making her opinion on things known. She seemed like a good contrast to Harper's polite, reserved self. They would balance each other out in time.

They all went to bed early that night, with plans to attend an orientation at the stadium in the morning. Clarke found it a bit harder to fall asleep that night than it had been the previous night, even though she was tired. She found herself listening to Raven's deep, easy breaths and staring at the ceiling.

Eventually, she drifted off into a fitful sleep, though it was filled with dreams that escaped her memory the second she woke up and left her feeling uneasy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know this chapter is kind of boring, but kinda cute too? I feel like under different circumstances, Harper would be just a sweetie. And I always imagined her with a bunch of little siblings. Anyway, hope you enjoyed and let me know your thoughts!
> 
> -Birch66724


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING includes descriptions of sexual assault. Please don't read if this is upsetting to you.

The next four days were filled with everything that Clarke had thought college would be. Orientations and ice-breaker games and staying up until the wee hours of the morning with her roommates, laughing until she felt like she was going to pee her pants.

They went to the bookstore and got all of their textbooks and U of M gear to rep their college. They took the city bus to Target, but missed their stop and ended up riding around for over an hour across the city with a blind man who kept trying to solicit money from them. Raven and Octavia pointed out all of the places they knew from their time living in and around Minneapolis. One time, the 'blind' man gestured out the window at his favorite diner, at which point Octavia told him off for faking his disability and he got off at the following stop. They laughed without abandon as Raven flipped him off through the window and he reciprocated the gesture, raising his white cane into the air.

On Wednesday night, Finn came over to see Raven. Clarke retreated to Harper and Raven's room a few minutes after he arrived. She had said hello to Finn, then he had given her a weird look when Raven had her back turned, and Clarke felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle.

She didn't tell Octavia or Harper about it, saying simply that they had 'wanted some alone time'. The meaning of this was quickly grasped by the pair. Harper's mouth clamped shut and Octavia snickered. Clarke wasn't able to stop the girl before she started banging on the bathroom door.

"Don't forget to use protection!"

"Piss off, Octavia!" Raven yelled back. Clarke imagined her with her middle finger up to the door. It seemed to be a common gesture for Raven.

Clarke had been wondering all week why they hadn't met Octavia's brother yet, what with how much she texted him. When Clarke asked, Octavia had replied simply; "He thinks he's my dad," and rolled her eyes.

It was Saturday afternoon and Clarke was content to spend the whole weekend lounging around in preparation for classes starting on Monday.

Harper was painting her nails in the bathroom and the fumes of polish we permeating both rooms as the doors were constantly kept open like a hallway between the rooms unless the bathroom was in use.

"Alright bitches!" Octavia yelled, "I've made plans for us tonight."

Raven groaned and Clarke took her earbuds out skeptically. She had been sketching lazily on her bed.

"Alpha Phi Alpha." Octavia stepped over Harper and gazed at the three of them.

"Huh?" Raven raised a brow.

"Alpha Phi Alpha!" Octavia shouted, more insistent now. "It is the last free night before college starts, and we need to party it up!" she danced as she made her proclamation, whooping and swaying her hips.

"I don't know ab-"

"Shush! Live a little, Harp." Octavia patted the girl on the head. "They are having a party tonight, an end of summer type thing." she explained.

"I'm down," Raven agreed. Clarke looked at her, surprised. She hadn't expected Raven to agree so readily. "Can I invite Finn?"

"Sure! It's a frat party, you could bring a damn ostrich and no one would say a word," Octavia grinned. "Clarke?" She hurried over and cupped Clarke's face in her hands. "Please! It's our last free day! Then we're going to have to study and go to classes and-" she fake dry heaved at the prospect of studying. At college.

"Well…" Clarke considered. Never in her life had she been to a college party. In fact, never in her life had Clarke even been drunk. She had some alcohol before, but never enough to be, well, drunk.

"'Well' is a yes in my book!" Octavia crooned, turning her attention back to Harper. "No way you can't go now! You'll be home alone!"

A few moments later, Harper had reluctantly agreed, Finn had been invited, and Octavia was digging through everyone's drawers to find the perfect outfits for each of them.

"I will not be caught dead in some whore dress!" Raven shouted at Octavia, who grinned like the Cheshire cat.

"I have the perfect thing for you." She tossed a skintight black dress at Raven and giggled.

"No!"

"C'mon! You're so hot Raven! Show yourself off!" Octavia danced provocatively and Harper giggled. Clarke cracked a grin.

The two dark haired girls argued while Harper painted Clarke's nails. Clarke never painted her nails as she was liable to chew the polish off. She definitely never painted her nails pink.

When she had protested the shade, Harper refused to release her hand until Clarke consented, claiming it looked great with her blond hair.

Octavia put Clarke in a black and grey dress with sequins that was not her style at all, but she dared not protest further. Somehow, Raven had been won over and was sitting with a scowl on the edge of her bed, the black dress piled in her lap.

Octavia made them all eat pasta and bread in the dining hall,

"You're going to need something to soak up all that alcohol."

Harper said she was drinking no more than two drinks and Clarke agreed. Octavia rolled her eyes and Raven raised her brows.

"We'll get you drunk, don't worry about it." Harper shook her head and Clarke silently set her resolve. Someone needed to stay sober if all of them were going to make it back to their dorm in one piece. Clarke decided that she would now be, in fact, drinking zero beers.

Finn arrived around eight, dressed casually in jeans and a band t-shirt. All the girls moved into the bathroom and Octavia's side of the room to get ready. Harper painted makeup on their faces and Octavia out them into their outfits.

Clarke was apprehensive about the whole affair. She wasn't one to dress up too often, but after a few moments, she let herself go and enjoyed the moment with her new friends. They played music and sang terribly and danced even worse.

"Here, Clarke," Octavia settled a jeweled headband onto Clarke's hairline.

"I look like I'm playing dress up!" Clarke objected, fiddling with her hair in the mirror.

"No! You don't, I promise! Your hair is curly and you can barely see it. It just gives you that extra little pop!" Octavia's eyes sparkled and Clarke couldn't refuse. Plus, she was already in too deep. The dress and the makeup and the shoes and new extravagant jewelry.

"You look gorgeous!" Finn complemented Raven, pulling her into a hug. He winked over his girlfriend's shoulder at Clarke, who pretended she didn't notice.

By 9:30, they were headed out of the campus to the frat house. Clarke's original feelings of foreboding had subsided into unabashed bliss as she sang off key as she walked down the street, arm and arm with Octavia who was already tipsy, even 100% sober.

Clarke could hear and smell the party long before she saw it. It wasn't even 10 pm and already the place was crawling. In the front yard, a beer pong tournament was taking place on white folding tables. Guys whooped and hollered, chugging and crushing cups, laughing and slapping each other on the back. Music pulsed out of the house's open windows, shaking the glass in the frames. People spilled out of the door towards a keg on the porch, laughing and leaning on one another.

Girls dressed much the same as they were danced with red solo cups in their hands and closed eyes, pressing their bodies up against anyone and everyone. The five of them stopped on the sidewalk outside of the house. Octavia dropped Clarke's arm and surveyed the scene with excited eyes. Harper looked apprehensive and Raven was sticking close to Finn.

"Let's get a drink!" Octavia yelled over the music, leading the way up onto the porch. One of the beer pong players whistled as they made their way up the walk. Clarke didn't turn around.

The guy filling cups from the keg started flirting with Octavia and she flirted right back. Clarke watched, slightly impressed at the easy flow of her words and the way she knew right when to place her hand on the guy's bicep so he looked up at her. He gave each of them a cup before Octavia slid her hand down his arm to interlace their fingers, leading him through the door with a little wave over her shoulder. They disappeared into the mass of pulsing bodies clogging the living room of the house while Raven, Finn, Harper and Clarke lingered on the porch a moment before going inside.

Harper pressed to Clarke's side and she was glad for that. Harper seemed just as bewildered as Clarke felt, but was doing a worse job of hiding it. Her bright eyes were wide and her head was on a constant swivel.

Raven wrapped her arms around Finn's neck, her cup precariously balanced on his shoulder as she swayed to the music. Clarke looked down at her own cup. Frothy beer filled it halfway. She had already decided she wouldn't be drinking tonight and discreetly set the cup down on a side table next to a disgusting looking sofa.

"Want to dance?" Harper had to shout in Clarke's ear to get her to hear. Clarke shrugged and nodded. What else could they do?

The next 20 minutes or so were painful for Clarke. The music was too loud and she didn't recognize any of the songs being played. The house was so hot and she was sweating, despite being scantily dressed. People were varying degrees of drunk, from just buzzed to stumbling and slurring words to throwing up in the corner.

Harper didn't stray from Clarke and they served as security for one another.

A pair of guys came up to them a while later. Clarke greeted them with a smile.

"Dancing alone?" The taller of the two leaned down and asked them.

"Yeah," Harper called back. "Care to fix that?"

"Harper!" Clarke giggled at her boldness.

The guys exchanged a glance. "Alright," The taller guy held his hand out to Clarke and she took it. He had short blond hair and muted brown eyes, hazed over by drink or something else.

"I'm Chase," he introduced himself. His breath smelled of booze and sex.

"Clarke,"

"Oh, I always liked a chick with a guy's name." Chase purred. Somehow, he was endearing in an oafish sort of way. Clarke smiled and hesitated only a moment before she closed the distance between them. His body was hot. As in temperature… but, he did have abs. Clarke could feel his stomach and chest through his thin blue shirt.

Clarke craned her neck to check on Harper, who was standing in front of the other guy, looking shyly up through her eyelashes. He seemed gentle, so Clarke turned her attention back to Chase.

"You a freshman?"

Clarke nodded and Chase smiled.

"Me too," Clarke knew he was lying but she didn't care. She let him put his hands on her hips and pull her in, letting herself enjoy the moment. College was starting in two days! Time to have a little fun.

The house pulsated and Clarke's head was throbbing along with it. Someone turned on some kind of DJ lights and flashes of blue and green and red cut lines across the hazy air. The skunky scent of marijuana floated down from upstairs. Clarke felt rebellious. Never in high school had she really been to any parties, and now she felt bold and adult.

Clarke danced with Chase for at least an hour before he started getting handsy and trying to kiss her, settling his lips on her neck when she turned her face away. She let him feel her up for a minute or two before she grabbed him by the wrist and pushed his hands away.

"No, I don't-"

"Wanna get outta here?" he asked suggestively.

"No, thanks," she stepped back, giving him an apologetic look. He frowned before moving on without another word. Clarke was alone then and momentarily overwhelmed. She scanned the crowd for her friends but didn't spot anyone she recognized.

"Clarke!" someone yelled. Clarke spun around to see Finn wading through the crowd towards here, a pair of cups held above his head. Clarke wasn't sure she wanted to be alone with Finn.

"Hey, Finn," Clarke said when he reached her. "Where's Raven at?"

"She upstairs. Passed out."

"Passed out?" Clarke asked, concerned.

"She's a bit of a lightweight." Finn chuckled.

"Don't you think you should be with her, I mean, she shouldn't be alone if she's unconscious," Clarke turned towards the stairs without waiting for Finn's response.

"Relax!" He called after her, pushing through the crowd to follow Clarke as she hurried towards the staircase. "Clarke!"

Clarke had made it to the top of the staircase before Finn caught up to her. "Where is she?" She spun back towards Finn. It was quieter upstairs, though she could feel the floor vibrating beneath her feet from the pounding bass speakers below.

"She's in here, she's safe."

"Better be," Clarke muttered. She pushed into the door that Finn had gestured to. Raven was there, sitting slumped on the floor beside a bed with a suspiciously stained duvet. The bedroom was empty and sparsely furnished, lit only by a streetlight glinting in through the window.

"Raven?" Clarke crouched down and took the girl by her shoulders, shaking her gently. After a moment Raven's head lurched up. Her eyes struggled to focus on Clarke's face, but she eventually managed.

"Clarkey? Where ya been?" she slurred.

Clarke rolled her eyes with a smile. "Right here, you dumbass."

"Humpf. Wake me up for school, Finn." Raven murmured, her head flopping to the side again, her mouth turned up in a tiny smile.

"See? She's just schlumped."

Clarke snorted, then sat on the edge of the bed. "Sorry, didn't mean to freak out on you."

"No worries. But you need a drink, Clarke. Here." Finn reached out one of his cups to her.

Clarke held up her hands. "No, someone has to stay sober to get these idiots home."

"That's literally why I'm here." Finn laughed and Clarke looked at him skeptically. "Raven called me, asking me if I wanted to come to this stupid party to bring you guys home, because she and Octavia wanted to get you and Harper wasted."

"What?" Clarke hopped to her feet.

Finn was smirking. "True. Guess Raven just forgot she was a lightweight." He took a long pull from one of the cups.

"Dumbass," Clarke muttered, nudging Raven's lax legs with the toe of Octavia's fancy shoes that she had been wearing.

"Here. Live a little," Finn held out the other cup, not the one he had drank from. Clarke hesitated a moment longer before accepting the red plastic cup. She took a sip, scrunching up her nose.

"Ew, what the hell is that?"

Finn shrugged. "Whatever was in the keg."

Clarke frowned. Along with the gross taste of whatever cheap beer it was, there seemed to be an underlying taste, sort of acidic and bitter.

"Come sit. We never got to talk."

Clarke was reluctant. Finn seemed pretty normal right now, but he still made her nervous. She sat beside him on the bed though, a sizable distance away, cradling the cup in her lap with both hands.

"Sorry about that day in the elevator," Finn apologized. Clarke broke her gaze from the floor to look at him. "I had no idea that you were Raven's roommate."

"That doesn't make it okay…" Clarke said slowly.

Finn didn't respond for a long beat. "I guess you're right," He drained the rest of his cup, fiddling with it to keep his hands busy.

Clarke didn't know what to say to him. She wanted to leave the room, to pick Raven up off the floor, find Harper and Octavia and go back to the dorm. And lock Finn outside. Why did he think it was okay to cheat on his girlfriend? Especially after Raven had expressed to Clarke just how much Finn meant to her. He was her whole family, her whole world. He clearly didn't feel the same. Even though Clarke had only known Raven a week, she felt such a deep loyalty and responsibility to her.

"But hey, tell me about yourself. I don't know hardly anything about you," Finn broke into her thoughts.

"Uh. Well, what do you want to know?" Clarke coughed, her throat was scratchy.

"Take a drink," Finn urged. Clarke did, cringing at the taste again. "Better?"

"Yeah," she replied, though she wasn't quite sure.

"Tell me about your family," Finn said.

"There isn't much. My mom's a workaholic and my dad's dead. I never had any siblings," Clarke took another drink. Maybe that's how people become alcoholics; any time they were forced to talk about their miserable families, they just drank.

"I didn't either,"

"Yeah, Raven told me about that… one time. Your mom, she wanted more kids…"

"Yeah. She had cancer. When I was like, three, I think."

"Cancer…" Clarke murmured. Her head felt fuzzy. She blinked slowly.

"But Clarke, what I said, in the elevator, was true."

"Wha-? Elevator?" Something felt wrong. Clarke felt like she needed to yawn, but her mouth wouldn't open.

"You're beautiful. You really are," Finn's face was close to hers now. Too close.

"I need to- I need to go," Clarke stammered.

"No, shhh. It's okay," Finn said. His voice sounded a million miles away, but Clarke knew he was close. So close.

His hand was on her thigh, sliding up. She tried to push him away. Why wouldn't her hand move from her side? Why couldn't she move her own hand?

"Lay down. You're alright," Finn was pushing her back. She tried to resist, but something was wrong with her muscles. The cup slipped from her numb fingers. She felt it splash on her bare leg.

"Finn, no."

"Quiet," Finn said. His mouth was on Clarke's. He tasted like beer and metal and everything utterly wrong.

"Stop it."

His hand was pushing up her dress. His body was pressing down on hers.

"Stop."

The word was faint. She couldn't manage to say another one. She wanted to.

She wanted to scream and his fingers felt for her underwear.

She wanted to cry out when he swung his leg over her.

She wanted to run when he kissed her jaw.

Something was wrong.

Something was wrong.

Everything was wrong.

"It's okay, you want this as much as I do," Finn's voice was there. So close.

Clarke faded away from a moment. Grey bubbles filled her eyes.

Then pain in a place she had never felt before. Not like this.

She did cry out then.

No one heard.

No one stopped him.

No one helped her.

She was alone.

"See? You wanted it too."

Clarke's senses dissolved, suddenly and all at once.

The whole world was black and silent and empty.

She was empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is... heavy.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and stay safe friends.
> 
> -Birch66724


	5. Chapter 5

Sensation returned.

Something rough was rubbing against the side of her face.

She was moving.

Her eyes flashed open and she struggled then. She could move again.

"No, shhh! I'm not him. I'm not him." A deep voice reverberated around in Clarke's head.

He was right. This he wasn't him.

Clarke's body was tired. Her eyes slipped closed again. The gentle motion continued.

He was someone else. And he smelled of the rain and the night and safety.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's short, I know. Only one like this, I promise.


	6. Chapter 6

Sensation returned again, this time slower and more completely, to one sense at a time.

Hearing came first; gentle breathing, a running faucet, faint footsteps, voices from the floor above or below.

Clarke's nose reawakened to the flowery scent of fabric softener and clean linens and morning haze.

Next her skin tingled with warmth, aware of a scratchy covering.

Finally her eyes came alive, moving behind their lids which were held shut by gloppy makeup.

Her body came alive. Clarke shifted her stiff legs and pain erupted from her lower abdomen and her eyes flew open involuntarily with slight delay as mascara unstuck itself.

For a groggy, disoriented moment she thought she was back in her bed in Oregon. It was several seconds until her brain caught up and processed what her eyes were seeing, and she realized she was in her dorm room.

Then her brain told her why her pulse was racing, why her palms were sweaty and why she was checking all the corners of the room for a shadowy figure.

The party. The dancing. Finn. The drink. Raven. The bedroom. Finn. Finn.

Clarke's breath hitched.

She couldn't move.

What if he was here?

Was Raven here?

Had he done the same thing to her?

Clarke sat up, ensuring her roommate was there. Only a mop of black hair spilled out from Raven's bed as the blankets rose and fell with her gentle breaths. Clarke sighed in relief, then was awash with guilt. Finn and Raven. Finn and her.

Clarke shuddered.

Her abdomen ached.

What had happened?

How did she end up back in her room?

She couldn't remember…

She tried to back track.

She started to whisper to herself, the only way to organize her thoughts was to say them aloud.

"Okay, we got ready in the dorm, then we walked to the party, then… I danced. And Harper. And… that boy. Charlie. No. Chris. No, not that,"

She stopped.

She couldn't remember his name.

"It's not important. Who cares. What happened after that?" She kept her voice soft as to not wake Raven.

Clarke sat, racking her brain. How had she gotten from dancing to the bedroom? That part was blank. Black. She remembered Finn, on her, the pain. Then it was black again. How did she get here?

I have to pee. That was all she could think now. Pushing back her covers, she looked down at her outfit. She was still wearing Octavia's sequined dress. She also had on a pair of grey sweatpants. She frowned. When did I put these on?

Why can't I remember? I didn't even drink that much.

She swung her legs off the bed, but the movement sent her head spinning with stars. She swallow stiffly, gripping the edge of the mattress and taking a deep breath. Her mouth felt horribly stale and dry.

It took a few moments to gather enough courage to push herself to her feet.

Clarke hissed, sucking in a breath. It hurt. A lot. More than she expected. What did he do to me?

She waddled, hunched over, to the bathroom and lowered herself excruciatingly slowly onto the toilet. Upon pulling down her sweatpants, she discovered she was wearing no panties, and she was painted with blood.

Clarke shuddered and started to clean herself up, not thinking. She couldn't think, it was all too awful. She tossed the ruined pants into the shower and cleaned herself. It hurt.

Water dripped onto Clarke's bare thigh. She hadn't realized she was crying.

"Stop it," she scolded herself. Time slowed as she remembered saying those exact words to him last night.

"Stop it!"

He hadn't stopped.

She sat for God knows how long, frozen in pain and shock and fear and disbelief.

A soft knock came from the door. Clarke jumped, her heart jolting. Liquid fear trickled down her back, quenched only by Harper's gentle voice.

"Someone in there?"

Clarke couldn't respond for a long time.

"Yeah, just a minute," she croaked. Her voice sounded awful.

"Jeez, rough night?" Harper joked quietly from the other side of the door.

Clarke couldn't respond.

She only painfully stood and tugged the dress down before scrubbing her hands furiously in the sink and silently pulling the shower curtain closed so Harper wouldn't see the pants. Clarke avoided looking at herself in the mirror.

She shut the bathroom door behind her and made her way back to her bed, which was also crimson-stained. She stared at the bloodied sheets for a long moment.

I guess I'll just say I got a heavy flow a few days early.

She was thinking up lies without even knowing why. People couldn't know about this. What would they think?

Clarke changed into clean sweatpants and a sweatshirt, placing a thick pad into her underwear. Then she quietly stripped her bed, balling up the soiled bottom sheet and tossing it to the floor.

Finally, she dug out a few ibuprofen pills and swallowed them using Raven's water bottle. Clarke gazed at the sleeping girl, making sure she was still resting undisturbed.

She crawled onto her bare mattress and tugged her quilt over her, wanting to do nothing but sleep.

But sleep didn't come.

Clarke drifted in and out of consciousness for several more hours until Raven's stirring brought her firmly into reality. She opened her eyes and watched Raven sit up and run her hands down her face and through her hair.

"T'hell happened to your bed?" Clarke was slightly relieved to hear just how gravelly Raven's voice sounded too.

"Heavy flow," Clarke mumbled into her blanket.

Raven frowned. "That sucks," she stood and stretched. "What happened last night?"

Clarke's breath caught in her throat and her heart jumped.

"I don't-know. I don't remember," she lied.

Raven gazed quizzically at her. "Hmm. Are you okay, Clarke?"

"Yeah!" she said quickly. "I just- have bad cramps, is all."

Why am I lying?

"Good thing you didn't start bleeding at the party," Raven yawned. Her eyes were thankfully closed when Clarke's face crumpled. She tucked the blanket over her head and took a few steadying breaths.

A moment later, Octavia was banging down the bathroom door. Harper trailed her into the room, looking less enthusiastic.

"How was last night?" Octavia asked brightly. Clarke sat up in bed.

"Rough," she muttered.

"Aww, babe," Octavia crooned, sitting on the edge of her bed. "You poor thing."

"Thanks," Clarke said dully. She felt like an entirely different person than she had been the previous morning. Something deep within her had changed, twisted and contorted beyond recognition. It was eating at her insides, making her throat feel tight. She couldn't tell these girls. They weren't broken like she was now, and Clarke couldn't be the one to ruin them. Raven especially.

"I honestly don't remember anything," Raven grumbled. "Finn left me a text saying he brought me home around 1 AM."

"Yeah, he did. Then Bellamy showed up," Octavia glared down at her phone.

"Bellamy?" Clarke asked.

"My brother. He found out from God knows who that we were at that party and showed up and busted us. Like he's my dad."

"I remember that," Harper chipped in. "He called that Lyft for us and sent us home."

"I don't remember it at all." Clarke said.

"That's 'cause you weren't there." Octavia informed her. "When Bellamy showed up, he found you and Raven both passed out upstairs. He put me and Harp in the Lyft and sent Raven with Finn. I didn't want to leave you there, Clarke, but Bell said he'd get you home."

Clarke looked incredulously at Octavia.

"You really don't remember?" Harper asked.

Clarke flopped back down onto her bed.

"Were you drugged or something?" Octavia asked jokingly. Clarke's eyes flew open.

Was I drugged? Finn and that cup… and the taste. Oh God, Oh God, Oh God.

No one said anything for a moment, then Octavia broke the silence.

"I'm hungry. Wanna go downstairs and get something to eat?"

"I'm down,"

"Sure,"

"Clarke?"

"Uh, I think I'm going to stay here for a bit. I'm feeling a little nauseous." At least that wasn't a lie. Clarke's stomach was rolling.

"You sure? Are you feeling sick, Clarke? Did you eat something at the party last night?" Harper walked over and laid her hand on Clarke's forehead with a caring expression.

"No, no. I've just- never been hungover before, I guess."

Octavia snickered. "You'll get used to it."

Raven made a face at Octavia before herding her out into the hall.

"Be back in a bit, Clarke. Call if you need anything."

"Thanks," Clarke rolled over in her bed, facing the wall.

The door clicked shut and she started to cry. She didn't want to, but she couldn't help it.

Had Finn drugged her? He couldn't have. He couldn't do something like that, could he? Well, I never thought he would do what he did to me already…. But he did.

Clarke hugged her knees up to her chest and shut her eyes. She didn't know what to do. Should she tell someone? Who? She couldn't tell Raven. Absolutely not. Octavia? No. Harper? Clarke didn't think she would be able to. Should she go to the police? Did she even have any proof? Would they believe her? Should she confront Finn?

Clarke mulled over her thoughts, knowing full well that she wasn't going to follow through on any of the things she thought of.

But what if I don't tell anyone, and he does it again?

She shuddered. Suddenly she couldn't lay here and think about it anymore.

Rising from bed, Clarke threw the blanket to the floor. She went to the bathroom and retrieved the bloody sweatpants and balled them up with the sheet before burying them at the bottom of her laundry basket. Her hands were shaking.

Get a hold of yourself. She scolded. After a moment, she tossed her bottle of detergent onto the pile of clothes and picked up the basket. It was the same basket that Finn had carried for her on the first day she met him. Clarke resisted the urge to drop the basket and scrub her hands clean, knowing she was touching the same handles he had.

"It's okay," she told herself aloud. "Get a grip. Do some laundry and take a shower. I'll be better then."

Clarke slipped her bare feet into her shoes and carried the laundry to the elevator. It opened right away. She stepped inside and the door slid shut. She punched B for the basement, where the student laundry was. The elevator felt haunted. Finn had been here. With her. Alone. What if he had assaulted her then?

"Stop," She commanded herself, squeezing her eyes shut. The elevator stopped at the third floor.

Clarke felt her pulse jump. She wasn't in control of her own body and she was petrified.

A guy stepped onto the elevator. Clarke looked up to see him, to reassure her racing pulse that it wasn't Finn. It wasn't Finn. This guy was taller, much taller than Finn, with broader shoulders and a more adult looking face. He had a mess of black curls and brown eyes and a strong jaw.

Clarke thought she would find herself reassured that this man wasn't Finn, but instead she noticed his huge hands and powerful frame. He could easily overpower me.

The elevator doors shut. They shut Clarke in with this man. She felt her throat tighten.

"Hey," he said. His voice was rich, gentle. Clarke met his eyes. He looked… concerned.

Clarke could manage no words. She gave a tight lipped smile and looked at the digital display above the door.

2.

"How are you?" he asked. Why is talking to me?

"Fine," Clarke tried to say but it came out a whisper.

"You're Clarke." he said simply.

"I don't know you," She breathed, trying to step back, only to meet the back of the elevator.

1.

"It's okay," He held up his hands. Clarke didn't move. The bar on the elevator was pressing into her back. "I'm Bellamy."

Clarke's eyes flashed in recognition. Oh God.

"Octavia's…" She couldn't say more.

"Yeah, I'm Octavia's brother. I don't even want to know what she's told you about me," Bellamy ran a hand through his hair and scoffed.

Clarke didn't reply. The elevator came to a halt. The doors opened. Clarke wanted to dart out of the elevator, but Bellamy said,

"Want me to carry your basket? I'm headed back there to get my laundry, too."

Clarke didn't respond but Bellamy took the basket from her hands. She followed him off the elevator, staring at the floor as he led the way down the hall to the room with washers and dryers at the back of the basement. She forced down the sick sense of déjà vu at the sight of the basket in another man's hands.

Bellamy didn't speak either.

"Here you go," He said, placing the basket down in front of an open washing machine.

"Thanks," Clarke breathed, starting to move her clothes into the washer so she wouldn't have to look at Bellamy. What did he know? Did he really see me last night? What kind of state could I have been in? Oh God...

He didn't move away, so Clarke paused. She couldn't take anything else out of the basket without revealing the bloodied linens.

Bellamy was looking at her with an unreadable expression so Clarke stared at him.

"Hey, uh I don't-" he looked away. Clarke didn't. What was he trying to say?

"What?" she asked.

"I'm sorry." he finally said, meeting her eyes. He looked sad. Utterly sad.

Clarke sniffed and rubbed her nose. "Nothing to be sorry for," She swallowed, averting her eyes and biting her lip. He knows. He knows. Oh God, he knows.

Bellamy didn't move. He had to leave before Clarke could empty her basket, before she could start up the washing machine and try to erase the evidence.

"Don't-" Clarke cleared her throat. "Don't tell anyone. Nothing happened." she lied.

"Clarke…" Bellamy whispered. Clarke could not look at him.

"Nothing happened," She said, stronger this time. "I don't remember anything."

Bellamy made a noise, halfway between a groan and a whine. Clarke looked up at his dark face. He was handsome in a solemn sort of way.

"Okay, whatever you say." He said, then turned and walked away.

Clarke thought she would be relieved at Bellamy's absence, but she felt more hollow than ever. She stuffed her sheets into the washer and dumped in detergent without measuring it before hurrying back to her dorm. She went up five flights of stairs instead of getting into the elevator again. She wasn't sure she could ever get into that elevator alone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Clarkey. :( At least Bellamy was there for her. Also, I apologize for making Finn the bad guy in this story, I really don't hate him.
> 
> Thank you to those who have left comments and kudos, they truly do make my day and serve as the best motivation to write.   
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> -Birch66724


	7. Chapter 7

"This was on the door for you, Clarke."

Raven and the other girls were back from breakfast and Clarke looked up from her sketchbook. She hadn't drawn anything, just stared at the blank sheet of stark, pure paper.

Raven handed her a folded piece of paper with scotch tape on the top. Her name was scrawled across it in all capital letters, clearly a man's handwriting.

"Hmm.," Clarke wasn't sure she wanted to read it, whatever it was.

"Harper insisted we bring you these," Raven set a muffin and a banana on the nightstand. "You need to eat to feel better. Soak up that alcohol." Raven clicked her tongue.

"Thanks,"

"No problem," Raven gave her a curious look then said, "I'm going to shower, need to use the bathroom?" Clarke shook her head.

She waited until she heard the water start up before unfolding the paper.

Clarke,

I'm so sorry. I know you don't know me, but I'm here for you. I won't say anything, but I'd love to beat the shit out of the bastard that did that to you. Just say the word. I think you should talk to someone, to at least get it off your chest.

Don't hesitate to reach out if you need anything. I'm in room 312, right below you.

651-569-1033. Text anytime.

-Bellamy

Clarke stared at the note. Bellamy had harsh handwriting. It looked like him; dark and bold.

Part of her wanted to tear up the paper or burn it or soak it in water to smear the black ink. It linked her to the fact that something had happened; a sort of permanence that settled over the situation, like a snowfall over formerly green field.

Clarke felt anger rise in her chest then. Who did this Bellamy guy think he was, acting like he was Clarke's savior, the only one who she could turn to?

She was about to crumple to paper and chuck it across the room, when it dawned on her that he was right. Bellamy was the only other person besides Finn that knew about this.

How much did he really know though? He wasn't there. How much do I even know?

Did he know about the cup, the laced drink?

Clarke picked up her phone and added Bellamy's number to her contacts. She had no intention of texting him, but she did it anyway. After that, she read the note again. Her lips hinted at a smile as she read, 'beat the shit out of that bastard'. Clarke didn't typically condone violence, but if Finn was on the receiving end… maybe.

She ran her fingers over the ink, then folded the note and tucked it into one of her drawers, hidden safely in the folds of her winter coat which she hopefully wouldn't need for several more months.

"You should try a shower, Clarke. I feel so much better!" Raven moaned as she came out of the steamy bathroom, wrapped in a towel.

"I was thinking I would," Clarke agreed. She showered, then convinced Raven to go down to the basement to switch her laundry with her. The thought of stepping into the elevator alone, or worse yet, with a strange man, made her stomach roll.

Raven didn't have much to say. She fiddled with a dryer that had an OUT OF ORDER sign on in for a moment while Clarke scowled at her sheets. The blood had faded to a light brown splotch on the white linen.

"Now it just looks like you shit the bed."

"Thanks, Raven," Clarke muttered as her roommate snickered.

"Hey, it's not so bad. I won't tell anyone. Promise."

"Pinky promise?"

"Pinky promise that I won't tell anyone you shit the bed." Raven laughed brightly and Clarke smiled a little bit. For a moment the cloud of worry and fear that had been hovering around her head dissipated.

It returned moments later though and followed Clarke all day. She spent most of the time resting, sketching, and planning for tomorrow. Mondays Clarke had Chemistry at 8:30 AM until 11:00. Then she had a break for lunch, then Calculus at 1:30 PM until 3:00.

Clarke had been excited to start classes all week, and for years prior. She longed for college courses in high school, when she was stuck in mundane classes relearning the same things year after year. But now, she wasn't thinking about the courses themselves, but the walk across campus to get to the buildings and the strangers in each class.

That night, Raven shut their light out at 10 PM, wanting to get to sleep early. She was snoring lightly by 10:15 while Clarke lay staring at the ceiling. The darkness made her wary and she could not sleep. Clarke tossed and turned, trying everything she could think of to fall asleep; counting, tensing and relaxing her muscles, taking deep breaths, she even turned on some white noise sounds on her phone. But every time she closed her eyes and lay still, she could see Finn, feel his fingers on her neck, her leg, her face.

It was 2:54 AM when Clarke grabbed her phone off the nightstand and jabbed the screen to turn off the noise. It wasn't helping at all.

For a split second, she toyed with the idea of texting Bellamy.

No! He's asleep. And like he cares. Clarke tossed her phone to the floor and rolled over, pressing her forehead to the drywall. She needed to get up at 7 AM, which was only four hours and six minutes of sleep, if she fell asleep right now.

What would Bellamy say if I texted him?

If he were awake and cared to respond, what would he say? Clarke tried to imagine something he could text back that would make her feel better, but she couldn't. What had happened couldn't be undone, and no amount of reassurance or sweet words could change that.

Eventually, Clarke surrendered herself to a night of sleeplessness. Once she came to terms with the fact that her first day of college classes was going to pass in a tired blur, she finally drifted into a restless sleep, but sleep nonetheless. She dreamed of nothing.

Clarke had an awful first day of classes. She had to leave chemistry for 20 minutes because the guy who sat next to her had long hair and she had a minor freak out because she thought he was Finn. She meant to get lunch, but her stomach was rolling and she knew if she bought something she wouldn't be able to eat it anyway.

Then, Clarke could not find her calculus classroom, as it had been moved last minute and she had not received the email notice. She walked in 15 minutes late and everyone stared at her. Clarke nearly started crying, which was so unlike her that it made her angry, which made it feel even more like she was going to cry.

As soon as class was released, Clarke went home, crawled under the quilt, and cried. Thankfully, Raven was still out, so Clarke had a few moments to wallow in her own self pity. Frustrated at her inability to control her emotions, Clarke wanted to scream, but tensed up her whole body to keep the noise in, which made her ache. The pain between her legs had somewhat subsided, but it was definitely still there, lingering as a constant reminder.

Her phone buzzed and Clarke sniffled and reached for it.

A message from Bellamy.

B: Hope your first day was good.

Clarke looked at the words. What was he getting at? He must have known it was awful.

Before she knew what had happened, she was out of bed and down the stairs, standing outside of room 312. Her hand was raised to knock when she finally snapped back to reality.

"What am I doing?" she said aloud.

Something moved inside the room, Clarke stepped back from the door until her backside bumped into the wall across the hallway.

The door opened and Clarke turned, hurrying away, not looking back.

"Clarke!" Bellamy called gently after her. She couldn't turn around.

"Hey!" She was to the stairs now, leaning forward to press open the door to the stairwell. A hand was on her arm.

Clarke leapt backwards with a gasp as if she had been burned.

"I'm sorry," Came Bellamy's immediate reply. "I shouldn't have touched-"

"No, I shouldn't have come," Clarke whispered. "I don't know what I was thinking." She moved again towards the stairs.

"I'm glad you did. I want to help. However I can."

Clarke paused, leaning her forehead against the door. Bellamy's voice was so warm. She could feel his presence right behind her, but she didn't feel cornered. She felt… sheltered.

"I'm sorry," She whispered and slipped into the stairwell, climbing the steps quickly.

Raven came home shortly after, absolutely thrilled.

"This mechanical engineering class is actually the coolest thing I have ever done."

"It's the first day?" Clarke said questioningly.

"Exactly! It's day one and we already get to design our own ball bearings!" Raven was pulling things from her backpack and stacking them on her desk. "You'd think they were just little balls, but no! There are so many independent variables, like material, weight, density...I think steel is too common, so I was thinking maybe some titanium, only, I don't know if I can use that because the chemical composition is-"

Clarke listened Raven's explanation although she had little idea what the girl was talking about. It was nice to see her so excited though, at least someone had a good first day of college.

That night, Raven was engrossed in her project, waving Harper away when she interrupted with an invitation to go along to the dining hall.

"Alrighty then," Harper held up her hands in mock surrender. Clarke had reluctantly agreed to go with her, forcing herself from her cocoon of blankets.

"Clarke?"

"Coming," Clarke slid on her shoes and walked with Harper.

"Hey, have you been feeling okay?"

Clarke could feel her rising panic. "Yes. I'm fine. Why do you ask that?" She heard the defensive sound of her own voice and inwardly cringed.

Harper gave her a sad look. "You don't seem yourself Clarke. I just wanted to know if you were feeling sick."

Okay. She thinks I'm just sick.

"Well I have been a little under the weather." Clarke said, trying to make it sound like an admission. "Probably all the germs on campus, I must have caught a cold."

Harper clearly didn't believe this explanation but, thankfully, she let it drop for now.

"I found out that I get to student teach at Dowling Elementary next semester!" She said excitedly, holding the door open for Clarke.

"Really? I thought you did that like, way later."

"I did too, but they are trying a new system, where every student gets to go student teach for one quarter each year.

"That's awesome,"

"Yeah, I'm super excited. And hungry. Is that lasagna at the hot food line?"

They ate supper without incident, but on the walk back to Frontier Hall, Harper tried again to broach the subject of Clarke's obvious discontentment.

"I know that some people have a hard time… adjusting to college life," She started, pausing halfway through to find the right word.

"I'm fine Harper, really."

"No, I know. But I'm just saying, let me know if you need anything, okay?" Harper smiled softly at Clarke.

"I know, and I appreciate you being there for me."

Harper wrapped Clarke up in a hug. At first, Clarke stiffened, but soon relaxed into her friend's grasp, letting herself be momentarily comforted. Harper was sweet and innocent and this moment cemented the fact that Clarke could never burden her with the weight of what she was carrying. It was nice to know she cared though, and a hug every now and again couldn't hurt anything.

"Get some sleep tonight, okay?"

"I slept last-"

"Clarke, I sleep right on the other side of that wall. I felt you tossing and turning all night long." Harper gave her a wry smile.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I hope I didn't keep you up!" Clarke said guiltily, aware that her own issues were now negatively affecting her friends.

"No, it wasn't your fault. But Octavia's snoring, that's another thing!" Clarke laughed and Harper bid her goodnight before going into her dorm. Clarke let herself into room 412.

Raven was still hunched over her desk, her forehead nearly touching that paper.

"Turn a light on before your eyes dry up." Clarke walked over and flipped on her lamp.

"I could see," Raven objected, abruptly reaching out and typing something into the search bar of her laptop.

"You're welcome," Clarke chided and Raven grunted in response. Clarke yawned and flopped down on her bed. She didn't have any of her own homework, or at least none she had heard her professors telling the class about.

After changing into sweats and brushing her teeth and hair, Clarke was actually feeling decent. Her dinner with Harper had put her in a good mood, and the pain between her legs had decreased to a dull ache. As long as she didn't think about things, she was golden. Well, more like a piece of limestone painted gold, but close enough.

After a few episodes of The Office, which Harper had gotten her hooked on, Clarke shut out her light at 9:30. She was tired.

"Goodnight, Grandma." Raven teased her. Clarke stole Raven's signature retort and flipped her roommate off. Raven only snickered.

Clarke snuggled down in bed and lay content for a few minutes.

Tomorrow won't be the same as today. I am going to put this all behind me and move on.

Just as Clarke was thinking through tomorrow's schedule, 10 AM English Composition, 2 PM Human physiology, her phone buzzed on the nightstand.

Clarke reached out and grabbed it.

A text from Bellamy;

B: Hope your night looked up.

Clarke frowned at the screen, unlocking it. She realized she had never replied to his earlier text, only running down to his room in a confused daze. Her feelings from earlier came flooding back and her throat felt thick.

Why was Bellamy doing this? Did he think she needed him? That he was her savior?

Irritably, Clarke slapped her phone back down on the nightstand a bit harder than she had planned. She saw Raven glance up with a raised brow.

"Boy troubles?" she joked.

Clarke froze. She wanted to scream. If only Raven knew…

"You could say that," she whispered, burying her face.

'Clarke?" Raven asked, her voice tinged with uncertainty.

"M'fine," Clarke mumbled, praying to whatever higher power would listen for Raven not to press her. She felt certain that everything would come flooding out of her mouth before Clarke could stop it.

"Okay," Raven said.

Clarke laid in bed, staring at the blank wall, listening to Raven's pencil scratch and her fingers fly over her keyboard. They were comforting, normal sounds and as long as they continued, Clarke could focus on them instead of the voices in her memory.

When Raven finally pushed her chair back from her desk and went into the bathroom to get ready for bed, Clarke was still wide awake. Raven settled onto her mattress and silence fell over the room.

"It's okay."

Clarke shivered.

"Lay down."

Finn's acidic voice floated to the forefront of Clarke's mind from where it was deeply etched into the very tissue of her brain.

"You want this as much as I do."

"Go away!" Clarke whispered urgently, clamping her hands over her ears. This was worse than last night. Much worse.

Raven stirred and Clarke shuddered, hearing her sequined dress slide up her thigh instead of Raven's dark blue quilt rustling against the wall.

Clarke couldn't take it. She needed a distraction. She grabbed her phone off the nightstand and sat up in bed. Her phone unlocked where she had left it last. On Bellamy's texts.

Hope your night looked up.

He had sent it over four hours ago now; it was past 1 AM.

Clarke responded to him without thought, just as she had gone down to his dorm earlier.

C: I can't sleep.

She stared at those three words, then clicked off her phone, not expecting Bellamy to reply. He ought to be asleep. Clarke lay back down, resting her phone on her chest.

"You want this-"

Finn's voice replaying in Clarke's mind was interrupted by her phone's vibration.

Clarke felt her pulse quicken. Bellamy wasn't supposed to respond.

B: What's up?

What was she supposed to say to that. Did he mean, what's up that's preventing her from sleeping, or just, what was up? Considering not replying, Clarke turned her phone off again. The bright screen hurt her eyes in the dark room anyway.

The phone buzzed again.

B: Want to talk?

Clarke swallow stiffly and replied;

C: About what?

B: Anything.

Clarke looked at the word.

C: Raven's obsessed with ball bearings.

Clarke smiled gently. It was just random enough to distract herself.

B: Your roommate Raven?

C: How many Ravens do you know?

B: Fair point.

Clarke smiled softly, thinking about what to say next.

C: Which side of the room is your bed on?

It took Bellamy a few moments to reply and Clarke started to fret that he'd fallen asleep.

B: The left. You're right on top of me.

Clarke cracked a grin before Bellamy's next text came in quickly.

B: I'm so sorry that was insensitive.

Clarke hadn't even thought of it like that… how his joke related to her… situation. How did he know which side her bed was on anyway? Octavia must have mentioned sometime.

C: Don't be sorry, it made me laugh.

B: Really?

C: Yes, really.

B: I didn't hear you.

C: I didn't laugh out loud, I just exhaled abruptly through my nose.

B: Oh, I see. Couldn't wake Raven?

Clarke glanced over to her roommate, who was definitely still in dreamland.

C: Absolutely not. She'd start talking about titanium ball bearings again.

B: What a nightmare. What ever are ball bearings?

C: Couldn't say.

Clarke yawned, then tapped out another message.

C: I should get to sleep. Thanks for talking to me, Bellamy.

B: Anytime. Hope it helped.

C: It did. Sleep tight.

B: And don't let the bedbugs bite.

Clarke clicked off her phone and set it on the nightstand gently, like it was a precious gem. She felt herself drifting off to sleep, this time with Bellamy's gentle voice playing in her ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like this chapter. I hope you do, too. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> -Birch66724


	8. Chapter 8

Bellamy placed his phone beside his pillow and shut his eyes. It had been pure luck that he was awake when Clarke texted him. Something had crashed over in Jasper and Monty's room and woken him up with a jolt.

After receiving Clarke's text, he was glad for the two obnoxious boys for a second. But it was only a second. The two of them were always running experiments in the shower or building towers of books or stacking their beds on top of each other, trying to create something they called 'The Double Decker Bed Supreme'.

Bellamy was unsettled now, after texting Clarke, as he didn't know what his place in her situation was. He thought back to Saturday night, which was only two days ago, though felt more like weeks had passed since then.

Jasper had told Bellamy he'd seen the four girls heading out after Bellamy became worried when no one had answered his knock on Octavia's door. Jasper also mentioned that he knew of a party at Alpha Phi Alpha. Bellamy still remembered the way his heart had sunk at Jasper's words. That frat had a bad reputation.

As Bellamy set out across campus, his only concern had been for Octavia. He didn't know any of the other girls, beyond what Octavia had tersely told him, which was little more than their names.

When he'd arrived, he'd found Octavia quickly enough, dancing on an end table, singing into a beer bottle like a microphone. She'd refused to leave without her roommates. Bellamy remembered how angry he had been, pulling Octavia towards the door, but she had fought back and it was making a scene. It didn't matter that he was her brother, all people saw was a man trying to pull a girl out of a house that she clearly didn't want to leave.

Bellamy was forced to concede to her wishes, and had walked through that whole house, looking for those other three girls. The place was packed and it wreaked like cigarettes and vomit. Thinking back on it now, he was probably in the house when Clarke was upstairs, when it was happening… if only he had started his search there, it could have been prevented… But by the time Bellamy opened the door to that bedroom, Clarke was lying alone on that disgusting bed, unconscious, with her skirt up.

Bellamy remembered so vividly the way his blood had started to boil, seeing that poor girl there. Clearly, something was not right with her. He quickly fixed her dress and tried to wake her up, but she remained completely unresponsive. Part of him wanted to make Octavia see what could have happened to her, but another part wanted to protect his little sister, to shield her from the horrors of a night gone so terribly wrong.

One of the other girls, Raven, was there too, on the floor beside the foot of the bed. Bellamy had Clarke propped up on the wall when Raven's boyfriend came into the room. He woke Raven up and said he'd make sure she got home, tugging her to her feet without sparing a glance at the unconscious girl on the bed. Bellamy couldn't remember his name, but he looped a arm around Raven and she had stumbled out the door, talking drunkenly and grabbing at his shaggy hair.

The next few minutes were a blur. Bellamy had picked up Clarke, one hand under her knees, the other around her back, her head slumped onto his shoulder. She was limp as a ragdoll. He didn't know what to do. It was a bewildering experience, because for the first time, Bellamy didn't know what the right thing to do was. He saw red and the only thing he wanted to do was to beat the daylights out of whatever sick fuck had done this to a girl. Instead, he'd tightened his grip on the poor girl, vowing to get her back home safely.

As he carried Clarke into the hallway, he was worried he would be met with resistance. Bellamy knew that if he saw some dude carrying an unconscious girl from a party, he'd have a few choice things to say to him.

Luckily, or disturbingly, no one said a thing. He still wanted to shield Octavia from this sight, so he had placed Clarke down gently on a chair on the porch without his sister or Harper seeing.

He'd then ordered a Lyft and told them that Clarke wanted to walk back and get some fresh air and he wasn't going to let her walk alone. So, he'd shuffled Octavia and her roommate into the car and sent them back to the dorm. Harper had seemed sober enough to be suspicious of Bellamy's story about Clarke, so he figured she'd make sure they made it up to their room.

He watched the car turn the corner before jogging back up the walkway. He had to get Clarke off that porch. He'd scooped her up and walked quickly down the street, unsure what to do with her. Should he take her to the hospital? What was she drugged with? Was she going to wake up on her own? Was she going to wake up at all?

Bellamy paused halfway back to the dorm and sat down on a bench. Clarke was shuddering. Did that mean she was coming back around? Or was she getting worse? He took off his jacket and zipped it up around her. She looked like she was wearing a sack, drowning in his over sized jacket, but at least she looked less exposed.

He decided just to take her back to her dorm. She was breathing okay and her heart rate seemed normal, from what little Bellamy knew about medical things. And besides, what would he tell the hospital? He didn't even know her last name, for Christ's sake.

They were almost back to the dorm when Clarke stirred. She tried to fight against Bellamy's arms and he damn near lost his hold on her. Even in her weakened state, she was going to do anything to prevent another attack.

It absolutely broke his heart, and that's when Bellamy knew he was going to do anything he could to help her. He had tried to reassure her, and it must have worked because she stopped fighting. Or maybe she had been taken back under by the drugs. Either way, she slipped back into oblivion and became limp, her head lolling into the dip between his shoulder and neck.

Thankfully, the lobby of Frontier Hall was empty when Bellamy pushed through the door. Under the fluorescent lights of the Hall, the situation hit him in full. Clarke's face was smudged with makeup and her hair was a snarly mess. Bellamy noticed the little jeweled headband tangled in her blond hair. It was Octavia's. His knees almost buckled as the realization that this could have just as easily been Octavia smacked him in the face.

He stood with Clarke in the elevator, murmuring to her. Her face was crumpled into a look of terror and she squirmed every so often in her stupor. Maybe Bellamy had imagined it, but he swore that she relaxed just a bit as he talked to her.

He pushed open the door to dorm number 412 with his foot. A lamp was on inside but the room was empty. Bellamy guessed at which bed was Clarke's. He picked the one with the purple and green patch quilt because Clarke didn't seem like a dark blue person to him.

He realized now that he had picked right and felt a small sort of satisfaction for making the correct decision for her.

After he layed Clarke down on her bed, he'd taken a step back and looked at her. She looked simply miserable. He'd opened the first drawer he'd seen and found a pair of sweatpants. Then he'd taken off her shoes, which he realized with a pang were also Octavia's. He slid the sweatpants up over Clarke's legs, averting his eyes when he pulled up the skirt of the dress to settle the waistband in place.

When he looked down at his hands, he realized they were bloody. He looked down at his shirt and saw blood on it as well. His stomach rolled and he felt like he was going to be sick. Not that the sight of blood made him feel dizzy, but the thought that someone could be so sick as to violate a girl and make her bleed, and then leave her there, alone and exposed. Bellamy was disgusted.

He washed his hands in the bathroom, pressing his ear to the door on the other side, to Octavia and Harper's room, to ensure they had indeed made it home safely.

Bellamy didn't know what he could do about Clarke's bleeding and decided he'd just have to leave that alone. He gently unzipped his jacket from around her and slid it out, putting it on himself to cover up his blood stained shirt. It smelled like alcohol and sweat, but under that, something faintly sweet. Bellamy realized that it was Clarke's scent, slightly flowery but with a harsher air of the wind and night. That was one thing that guy couldn't take from her at least.

Bellamy reached down and smoothed the quilt over Clarke, tucking it in around her body to keep her warm. Then, without thinking, he had bent down and kissed her forehead, like he used to do to Octavia when she was little. He hadn't tucked his little sister into bed for years, but it was a habit so deeply ingrained in Bellamy's mind he had done it without thinking.

Bellamy sat up in his own bed now, feeling waves of disgust and worry flood over him. His gaze landed on his jacket, hanging over the back of his chair. Impulsively, he leaned forward and grabbed it, running the material under his fingers for a moment before bringing it up to his face. Under the faded scent of the party, the sweet scent still lingered.

It made his gut twist. When the elevator doors opened on Sunday and revealed Clarke standing there, it had been sheer coincidence. Bellamy was glad it happened though, despite the terrified look in Clarke's eyes. It gave him an in with her, a way to introduce himself. He felt like he knew her so well already, being the keeper of her darkest secret, but Bellamy was a stranger to her.

He felt such a strong sense of responsibility to her, and perhaps it was misplaced, but Bellamy knew he wasn't going to be able to shake it.

He rolled over in bed, hugging the jacket to his chest. He hoped Clarke was asleep.


	9. Chapter 9

Clarke was feeling good in the morning. She had actually gotten several good hours of sleep before it was interrupted by a nightmare. When she woke up, she couldn't remember what it was about, but she didn't want to dwell on it. The unsettling feeling lingered for a few minutes before Clarke managed to fall back asleep, curled in a tight ball around her quilt.

Raven also had a 10 am English course, and although it was Comp, it was in the same building so they could walk together. The morning was brisk and smelled like the last few sweet days of summer. The sun still shone brightly and Clarke found herself enjoying the walk. Raven didn't have much to say but they both seemed content to walk in silence, listening to the birdsong and traffic noises swirling around the sidewalk.

In her English class, Clarke met a girl named Lexa, who seemed friendly. They chatted for a while after class, loitering in the hall. Lexa was going for a business degree with the hope of taking over her father's manufacturing company one day, so their classes had no overlap, except Composition. Even so, Clarke was glad to know she had a friend on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

Raven and Clarke got lunch and spent a couple of hours in the library, getting started on their thesis papers. Evidently, they had both been assigned the exact same assignment from two different professors. Raven had made an offhand comment about it.

Clarke knew from the moment she walked into Human Physiology that afternoon, it was going to be her favorite class. The professor was an older man with a kind face and the classroom was set up in a semicircle shape. And, there were only 12 students! Clarke had always liked smaller classes and was excited to see how it would play out over the year. The hour and 30 minute class seemed to fly by, and before she knew it, she was being dismissed.

She was feeling light as she walked back to her dorm. Clarke was hardly even nervous about walking by herself across campus, even though the sun was starting to set. She had picked up dinner at a little cafe and ate her hot turkey club as she walked.

Maybe I just needed a couple of days and now I am back to normal. Clarke decided.

Raven wasn't home yet, so Clarke had a few moments to herself in the dorm. She didn't do anything with that time, just texted her mom. They had been sharing a few vague texts a day, mostly about how classes were going, but it was always several hours in between Abby's responses. Abby wasn't one to check her phone very often, even with her daughter in college across the country.

Clarke didn't particularly mind. It would be hard to hide her secret if her mom was nosy and insisted on calling her every night like Harper's mother did.

Clarke flipped through social media for a few moments before becoming bored and standing up. There was only so many, 'First Week of College, #lovingit' posts one could look at. She was just about to head into the bathroom when the door opened and Raven's laughter spilled into the room.

"I said, 'Ma'am, you can't put the salami back on the shelf with the tampons, it has to be refrigerated.'"

Clarke froze solid at the sound of that voice.

"Hey, Clarke. I totally forgot to tell you this morning that Finn was stopping over. Hope you don't mind." Raven said, her voice breathy from laughing at Finn's story.

Clarke couldn't reply. She turned and faced the wall. Breathe!

"It's okay." She croaked. She wouldn't look at Finn. She couldn't. She had to get out of this room. He was there. Right there. His presence was stifling. Clarke couldn't breathe.

"Want to watch that movie you were talking about yesterday?" Finn asked casually, flopping down on Raven's bed.

"Sure. D'you mind Clarke?" Raven asked, pulling out her laptop.

"N-no. I'm going to-" She had to stop and clear her throat, silently praying her voice didn't sound too shaky. "I'm going to work downstairs."

"You can stay! We'll use headphones." Raven insisted.

"It's fine." Clarke whispered. She finally found it within herself to make her legs work and she made a beeline for the door.

"That was weir-" Raven started to say but Clarke was shutting the door behind her. She wanted to slam it shut, but restrained herself. That would probably make Raven come after her, then Fin would follow behind and casually lean in the doorway. He would probably say something along the lines of, "Whats the matter, Clarke? Has something upset you?" Even the thought of his words, which were sure to take on a sickly sweet tone, had Clarke shivering.

What should I do now? She hadn't even grabbed her backpack. She couldn't go to Harper and Octavia's, they'd know something was up. Harper was simply too sensitive and caring, and Octavia was sure to be curious.

Clarke could hardly even breath right now. She could go sit downstairs, get a coffee… but what if Finn came down? She'd be all alone. She thought about her new friend Lexa. I don't even know what Hall she's in.

Clarke started down the stairs, anxious to get off the forth floor. Even the thought of standing on the same floor as Finn make Clarke's toes curl in her shoes, arching away from the contaminated carpeting. Her feet lead her to the only place she had left to go before she thought about it in her head.

Bellamy's.

Her hand was shaking as she reached out to knock on the door.

What if he's not here? What can I do then? Where can I go?

Clarke felt panic rising in her chest. Her whole body shuddered when she tried to inhale.

After what felt like an eternity, the door opened.

"Clarke?"

"Can I come in?" The words tumbled out of Clarke's mouth. Her hands folded together and she pulled them apart, fidgeting. She pushed into the room before Bellamy replied. Hurriedly, she shoved shut the door and slid the latch into place. She stood facing the door, trying to catch her breath.

The room was dark and smelled sleepy. And like Bellamy.

"Clarke? What is going on?" His voice was thick tinged with concern. Clarke took a deep breath before slowly turning around. Bellamy stood a few feet away in a plain grey tee and basketball shorts. His shades were drawn.

"Did I wake you up? I'm so sorry, I can go. I probably kept you awake last night, I shouldn't have even texted you. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have come, this isn't fair to you, I can't expect you to-." Clarke was talking fast as she reached back for the door latch. Her hands were shaking so bad now she couldn't undo it.

"Woah, woah. Slow down." Bellamy soothed. Light flooded the room as he pulled open the shade. Clarke turned back around, watching him squint into the late afternoon sunlight. He had definitely been asleep. His clothes were wrinkled and his hair had that sleep tousled look. Not that it wasn't usually a curl heap, but it was exceptionally messy now.

"I'm sorry." Clarke said again, pressing her hands flat against her thighs to try and quell their quivering.

"Don't be," Bellamy looked at her with a soft expression that made Clarke swallowed stiffly. "What's going on?"

Clarke hesitated for a moment. "He's here."

Bellamy gazed at Clarke. "Who's here?"

Clarke's hands flew back to her chest, twisting together. She looked as pale as a sheet and her eyes were as wide as dinner plates. Bellamy wanted to reach out for her and pull her in close. He didn't though. He knew she wouldn't appreciate it, especially in this state.

"Finn." She breathed out the word, glancing down at the floor.

Bellamy didn't quite follow. "Finn?" He asked gently. Clarke's head snapped up, alarmed.

"You don't know. Oh God, I- I can't," she started to stutter.

Bellamy connected the dots. Who was the only person who could do this to Clarke?

"Finn is the one who…" He wouldn't say the word. He couldn't.

Clarke nodded faintly.

"Why is he here? Did he come to find you?" Bellamy was anxious now. Was this guy upstairs right now? Was Octavia there?

Clarke wouldn't look up but Bellamy could tell she wanted to say something, only, the words didn't come out.

"Come in here." He said, waving her into the room from where she was still pressed against the door. She took a few tentative steps forward. Bellamy gave her a couple moments to compose herself, turning to make up his bed. He smoothed the comforter into place and folded his extra blanket much slower than necessary, then sat lightly on the edge of the bed.

He gazed out at Clarke just as she looked up and met his eyes. He felt a satisfaction wash through him as she visibly relaxed under his gaze. She took a few quick steps over to Bellamy and he thought she was going to sit beside him on the edge on the bed, but instead, she rigidly sat on the floor, gathering her knees up to her chest. She was just a few inches away from Bellamy's legs, her arms squeezing her legs to her torso so tightly, it seemed as though they were the only things still holding her together.

Bellamy wasn't sure whether to wait for Clarke to say something or to try and initiate the conversation, but before he decided, she spoke up.

"Finn is Raven's boyfriend." She said

"What?" Bellamy couldn't keep the exclamation in.

Clarke nodded. "That's why it's so- I can't say anything…" Clarke broke off, her voice was thick with tears.

Bellamy's heart went out to her as she sat, trembling, on his floor. He again felt the strong urge to hug her, but resisted. He didn't want to make Clarke afraid of him, too. He instead unfolded the blanket and draped it over her. She startled when it fell on her knees, but she nodded a thanks and wrapped it around herself.

"Does he do that to Raven, too?"

"No, at least, it doesn't seem like it." Clarke said a bit stronger, wiping her nose on the inside collar of her shirt. Bellamy looked around regretfully, knowing he didn't have any Kleenex.

"Well, that's something." Bellamy said scornfully. He kept his voice steady, but inside, he was all fire and fiery. How dare he have the audacity to stroll into Clarke's dorm, knowing full well she would be there. I'm sure he acted as if nothing had even happened.

"Yeah, but I feel like I should warn her, you know? But Raven…" Clarke paused and sniffed again. "Raven practically worships him. She told me that he was her whole family. 'Her whole world', those were the exact words she used."

Bellamy groaned inwardly. This ran far deeper than the surface offense, through layers of friendship and family that Clarke clearly didn't want to disturb, even for her own sanity and well-being. He smiled in a silent awe of her, how strong she was, how much loyalty, however misplaced it might be, she had to Raven, whom she had met not even a week prior. They sat in silence for a moment, Bellamy thinking, Clarke staring blankly.

"Don't you have a roommate?" Clarke asked suddenly. Bellamy followed her gaze to the bare mattress across the room, pulled from his musings.

"No, not right now at least. He dropped out or didn't show or something. Last minute so I never got a new one."

"Hmm. That would be nice." Clarke's voice was wistful.

Bellamy chuckled. "The two across the bathroom are more than enough, though."

"Oh? How so?"

"Well, just this morning Monty asked me if he could grow herbs under the empty bed."

"What? Like weed? I don't believe it."

"I'm not joking! Oh, and Jasper set up a distillery in the shower on the first night he was here. He wanted to make moonshine. Connected the hose right to the shower head, but he's no plumber, so when he turned the valve on, the hose shot off. Water everywhere."

Clarke was giggling then. Bellamy grinned. It was the first time he had heard a happy sound come from her mouth. He liked it, but what he liked even more, was that he had been the cause.

"Okay, I can never complain about Harper or Octavia." Clarke said, her voice 100 pounds lighter. Perhaps it was the change in topic, or perhaps it was her company. Bellamy preferred to believe it was the latter.

"Oh, I've lived with Octavia most of my life. I have plenty to complain about." Bellamy countered jovially.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, like the hair. Hair in the shower, hair in the sink, hair all over the floor, hair all over all the laundry. You'd think we had a dog!"

Clarke giggled louder, releasing her knees from her chest and stretching out her legs. "Never come into our bathroom then. All girls shed, it'd be your worst nightmare to have four in one room."

Bellamy made a disgusted noise and Clarke snorted. He beamed. He'd managed to cheer her up in a matter of minutes.

"You're a freshman, aren't you?" Clarke asked.

"Yeah."

"But you and Octavia aren't twins?"

Bellamy could see what she was getting at. He wasn't sure he wanted to get into his personal life. Then he reconsidered. He knew Clarke's deepest, darkest secret, so what was a little bit of family drama?

"No, we're not. I just had to wait to go to college until Octavia graduated high school."

He watched the back of Clarke's head nod. He knew she wanted to know more, but she wasn't going to pry. He decided just to continue anyway. In a weird sort of way, Bellamy felt like she deserved to know.

"My dad skipped out on us right after Octavia was born, and my mom couldn't support us on her own. She started to do some… unsavory work." Bellamy paused, hoping Clarke would grasp the meaning of it. She did.

"She obviously couldn't afford to pay someone to watch us, so we spent a lot of time alone. I had to look after Octavia, A couple of times Mom was arrested and we got bounced around to a few foster homes, but we were never separated, thank God. I started working as soon as I turned twelve, to help us get by. My mom was arrested again, about two years ago. 8 year sentence. Had to write a sob story essay in order to get us both in here on grants, but hey, here we are."

Bellamy hadn't expected it to be so hard to tell Clarke all this. Perhaps he just wasn't practiced in saying it, but he felt his throat turn scratchy.

Then, Clarke did something unexpected; she leaned into his legs, pressing her side into his calf.

"I'm sorry you had to go through all that. Octavia is lucky to have a big brother like you." She said kindly. Bellamy smiled softly down at her.

"Yeah, I'm the lucky one though. I don't know where I'd be today if I wasn't responsible for her life, too."

Clarke didn't have a response to that other than to rest her head on Bellamy's knee. He wanted to reach out and stroke her hair. It looked soft, the golden waves cascading over her shoulders and spilling onto his bare leg. It tickled.

For a moment, Bellamy felt unburdened. It had been so customary for him to carry around the weight of his life, never telling anyone about it. But here was Clarke, even in her own weakened emotional state, to take some of the load. They were bound by a sort of shared mutual suffering and Bellamy felt a connection forge it's way between them. He was sure that Clarke felt it too.

He shifted on the bed, his back was aching from leaning forwards at a weird angle, and Clarke jumped.

"Sorry." He immediately apologized.

"S'all right." Clarke murmured, wrapping Bellamy's blanket tighter around her shoulders to make up for the cold spot where she had been leaning against him.

"Do you want to talk about-"

"No!" Clarke interrupted Bellamy's question before he had finished asking it.

"Okay." Bellamy laid back on his bed, his head pressed up against the wall and his legs hanging off.

Clarke was quiet for a long time.

"Bellamy?" She asked timidly.

"Yeah?" He stared at the ceiling, very aware of her presence.

Clarke paused before seeming to think better of her question she had really wanted to ask, instead saying, "Thank you, for letting me in."

"Of course." Bellamy arched his back and it audibly cracked. Clarke gasped.

"Was that your back?" She cried.

Bellamy chuckled. "Sure was, Princess." He didn't know why he called her that, but as soon as he said it, he grinned.

Clarke's face popped into view and she peered at him from her knees.

"I never knew someone's spine couldn't make that sound." Her blue eyes were wide.

"Feels good, too."

Clarke wrinkled her nose. Bellamy propped himself up on an elbow to get a better look at her.

"You can't tell me you've never cracked your back."

Clarke shook her head. "Never."

"Hmm. You should get on that, Princess." Bellamy flopped down, mainly to hide his smile at calling Clarke Princess.

"What do you mean by that?" She asked. She didn't sound irritated.

"Mean by what?" Bellamy asked innocently.

He could hear Clarke roll her eyes at him.

"Calling me that."

Calling you what?" Bellamy was thoroughly enjoying himself, until Clarke socked him in the leg.

"Oof!" Bellamy exhaled, sitting up and glaring down at Clarke's big eyes.

"Princess." Clarke drew out, her nose tipped in the air.

"Don't you like it?" Bellamy teased.

"I wouldn't say that…" Clarke murmured, looking away.

Bellamy felt warm. He looked at Clarke and some dirty, boyish part of his mind joked at him. She was on her knees, in front of him.

No! He scolded himself, clearing his throat and adjusting his seat. Clarke glanced up, again startled. He had to stop doing that to her, for both of their sake's. It reminded him too much of when she had woken up while he was carrying her home that night. She had been terrified, struggling against him in a panicked daze.

"Bellamy?" Clarke started.

"Mmhm?"

"Do you know if- if he um, if he drugged me?" Clarke's voice got quieter with each word, but she spit it all out in a jumble, not wanting the words to touch her tongue.

Bellamy swallowed stiffly before answering. He wasn't going to lie to her, but he didn't know if he could tell her the truth either.

"I uh, don't know for sure. But you were pretty… pretty out of it when I found you."

"You found me?" She cried.

"Uh, yes."

"Oh God." She scrunched her body up, either embarrassed or scared, and Bellamy wished he hadn't opened his mouth.

"I mean, I don't remember anything, but I just assumed that…" Her voice was muffled, buried in the blanket.

"Hey, if you're worried about it, it's not like I saw-"

"It's not that." She burst out. Clearly, it was partly that.

"What, then?" Bellamy asked gently, feeling like he was pushing his bounds.

"I didn't want to think about anyone seeing me like that. I mean, I don't even remember most of it!" She twisted around, her eyes brimming with unshed tears as her face held a mortified expression.

"Clarke! Hey, now. I don't think of that girl as you. That was… not you." Bellamy struggled to explain what he meant. He truly didn't see the parallel between the girl sitting on his dorm floor right now and the unconscious girl in the frat house on Saturday night. That was worlds away, practically a different life as far as he was concerned.

"Doesn't matter. It was still me. I put myself in that situation!"

"Don't you think for a minute that what happened was your fault!" Bellamy's voice came out a lot harsher than he expected.

Clarke stiffened.

Bellamy cringed. "I'm sorry."

"No, no, you're right, I suppose." Clarke frowned down at her hands, which were fidgeting in her lap.

"I am right. And don't forget it, Princess." The words seemed as if they should have been spoken harshly, but Bellamy said them gently to Clarke, as reassurance and promise that he was going to make sure that fact was not forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I changed the POV in the middle, but I really didn't want to split this into two separate chapters, but I really wanted the bulk of the conversation to be from Bellamy's POV.
> 
> Thank you for taking the time to read my story, and I sincerely hope you enjoy it. Thanks, and have a happy, healthy rest of your day/week/month/year/life!
> 
> -Birch66724


	10. Chapter 10

Clarke stayed with Bellamy until her eyes were starting to droop. She yawned fiercely before standing stiffly from the floor. She hadn't moved from her spot the entire time. The floor felt like a safe, comfortable spot, although her spine didn't agree. She tried to knead out the kink forming in the small of her back.

"Ready to go?" Bellamy had caught Clarke's contagious yawn. She watched his mouth stretch wide and his eyes squeeze close.

"Yeah." Clarke looked away and folded up Bellamy's blanket which hadn't moved from her shoulders.

"I'll come upstairs with you, to see if he's still there." Bellamy rose from the bed. Clarke flashed him a grateful look at his offer. She had been fearing returning to her dorm, afraid she'd open the door to Finn's terrible face grinning out at her.

Clarke hesitated a moment when Bellamy held the door open for her. What if someone saw her coming out of a boy's dorm? Surely they would be reprimanded if it was someone who worked for the U of M, but even if it was just another student, Clarke didn't want anyone to get that impression of her.

Bellamy gave a moment of pause before he seemed to understand Clarke's worry. He went into the hall first, looked down it in each direction.

"Coast is clear." He said with amusement. Clarke huffed and rolled her eyes, leaving the safe haven that was Bellamy's dorm. Unwrapped from the fuzzy blanket, her arms felt bare and cold as the hairs pricked up in goosebumps in the air conditioned hallway. Clarke crossed them over her chest and looked at her feet as she walked. Bellamy pressed the up button and the elevator opened immediately.

Clarke felt a brief flash of dread at the elevator and wanted to take the stairs instead, but Bellamy was already inside and had pressed the 4 button. She scurried in.

"You don't like the elevator?" He questioned as Clarke shuddered when the door slid shut with a clunk.

"No." Clarke muttered, scuffing the floor.

"Why didn't you say so?"

Clarke shrugged, not looking up at him.

"Hmm, if only there was another way to get upstairs. Maybe there's a ladder somewhere, or what are those things called? Upstairs… oh! Stairs, that's it. We could have taken the stairs." Bellamy goaded Clarke, his voice thick with amusement.

"Shut up!" Clarke tried to pretend she was angry with him, but her grin slid through her poorly constructed mask.

Bellamy laughed and Clarke socked him in the arm.

"You just like to hit me!"

"If the punishment fits the crime." She retorted.

"Bellamy?"

Clarke hadn't even noticed the elevator door had opened.

"Hey, O! I was just coming to see you." Bellamy lied smoothly, stepping over the elevator threshold.

"You could have texted first." Octavia muttered, turning her attention to Clarke. "Where've you been?"

"Uh, I just met Bellamy in the elevator." Clarke said, flustered.

Octavia frowned.

"You were just sitting downstairs, weren't you?" Bellamy looked intently into Clarke's eyes.

"Y-yes. I was just- working on some homework." Clarke stumbled over her words, going along with Bellamy's lies.

"Oh." Octavia's face was set into deep lines; A mixture or confusion and curiosity and distrust. Clarke took a guess and figured that Octavia could see no schoolwork on Clarke. Not a backpack or a laptop or even a notebook. Clarke swallowed.

"Where were you headed out to?" Bellamy asked his sister, changing the subject.

"To look for Clarke." She told Bellamy irritably, then turned to Clarke. "Raven told me that you left all in a rush like something was wrong."

"No, I just wanted to give her and-" Clarke couldn't bring herself to say his name. "-her boyfriend some time."

"Okay. Well, I'm going to go to bed then." Octavia turned and led the way down the hall. Bellamy looked reassuringly at Clarke. She tried to make her face expressionless, but she was struggling to breathe.

Octavia shut her dorm room door behind her with a click, either having forgotten that Bellamy had said he wanted to speak with her, or she didn't care to listen.

Clarke turned on Bellamy with an anxious gaze.

"You don't need to lie for me." She bit out.

"But I-"

"No! It's not- right. And I don't think it's fair to ask you to lie to your own sister! Especially for my sake." Clarke felt pressure building inside of her head, pressing on the backs of her eyes, plugging her nose, making her throat thick.

"Clarke, don't say that." Bellamy murmured.

"No, it's not right." She said stubbornly.

"If it's what needs to be done, to, to protect you, then it is right."

Clarke tried to stifle her glare. Bellamy only wanted to help, she knew that, but it was rubbing her the wrong way in her heightened emotional state.

"I can take care of myself, but thanks for your offer." Clarke wanted her voice to sound strong and confident, but the words were barely a whisper. She turned and let herself into the dorm and shut the door behind her, leaving Bellamy in the hall with a dejected look on his face.

"Is that you, Clarke?" Raven's voice asked over the sound of music.

Clarke felt like she could scream. Everywhere she turned there was someone. Never could she just be alone.

"Hey, I'm sorry I didn't give you a heads up about Finn, but you don't have to leave when he comes over, you can hang out here." Raven prattled on, unaware of Clarke's ashen face in the doorway.

Clarke rushed into the bathroom and the door shut harshly behind her. Raven's voice cut out. Everything was too much right now and she couldn't breathe. The air couldn't fit through her throat and her eyes swum with unshed tears. Panis was rising in her chest as the need for air grew and grew.

"Clarke?" Raven asked, concerned from right outside the door. Clarke gripped the edge of the sink with both hands, shaking like a leaf. She struggled against an onslaught of dizziness as her stomach wrenched and twisted, and suddenly she was vomiting into the sink.

Clarke slumped against the counter, finally overcome, barely registering Raven's panicked voice and the rattling bathroom door. Her throat burned as she continued to heave, bringing up nothing but acidic bile.

She pulled her eyes up and met her own gaze in the mirror, not recognizing the pale skin, dark rimmed sunken eyes, and sallow cheeks. Her reflection looked nothing like the girl she remembered herself to be. Her gaze slid away as her vision fuzzed around the edges, her head throbbing as abstract shapes and pinpoints of light flitted. Her hands loosening from the sink was the last thing Clarke was aware of.

A few moments later, the cool floor tile was pressed against Clarke's cheek, bringing her around to the waking world again. There was a hand on her shoulder and several facing peering down at her, though Clarke couldn't identify them. She tried to struggle away from them, as they lomed closer. The first sound she heard was a strangled cry that escaped her own throat and she tried the writhe away from the hand which was pushing her against the floor.

"Clarke!"

"Calm down!"

"What's going on with her?"

Clarke felt her head being pulled from the floor and she made one more attempt to get away, swinging her arm out wildly, connecting weakly with the body of her adversary.

"Dammit, Clarke." She slumped against this person's body, her eyes sliding closed as arms wrapped around her, cradling her head and smoothing her hair back from her sweat streaked brow.. The hands were thin, feminine, as was the accompanying voice which gradually became clearer in Clarke's ear.

"Why didn't you tell me you weren't feeling well, huh? I would have kicked Finn out in a second, and you could have laid down and taken a nap. I could have gotten you a bucket and then we wouldn't have had to clean this bathroom." Raven's voice was dry.

"Should I get Bellamy? He was just with her, in the elevator. She seemed fine then." Octavia's voice was a bit farther away, more disgruntled than it was helpful.

"Maybe. I don't think I'll be able to lift her up off this floor, especially if she keeps fighting me."

"Should we call 911? Did she like, have a seizure?" At the suggestion from Harper, Clarke began struggling to open her eyes and sit up again.

"Hey, shh. Take it easy, Griffin." Raven tightened her arms around Clarke, stopping her vain attempts at rising to her feet.

"M'fine." Clarke slurred, blinking blearily. She'd never noticed how bright the light fixture above the sink was. The twin light bulbs showed down with a vengeance, seering Clarke's eyes until she closed them again, resting her head on Raven's shoulder.

"You're not fine." Harper said matter-of-factly. Clarke felt her gentle fingers on her face, brushing away the hair which was stuck to her dry lips.

"Don't call… the police." Clarke said, trying to make her voice sound normal.

"I wouldn't be calling the police, I'd call the ambulance." Harper clarified.

Clarke protested that, too. "No. I'm okay." She blinked her eyes open, seeing double.

"Where is she?" A harsher voice said loudly and suddenly a pair of Bellamys appeared, swimming before Clarke. She felt her heart sink and her stomach filled with dread. Just moments ago she'd shut the door in his face, claiming she didn't need his help. And he was already back.

"She's in the bathroom, I already told you that." Octavia sounded irritable as she followed her brother into her dorm, standing with her hands on her hips and a brow raised, watching Bellamy crouch beside Clarke's crumpled form.

"Hey." He said gently. Raven shifted underneath Clarke, pushing her upright, into Bellamy's waiting hands. "Let's get you into bed, huh?" He said, scooping Clarke to his chest. As much as Clarke had been determined, just a few moments ago, that she didn't need him hovering about her, looking out for her, she didn't resist his warm embrace.

Clarke's head spun at the movement of being lifted and she clamped her eyes shut, trying to contain the slight whimper that rose in her throat as blood pulsed mercilessly against her temples. She felt as if her brain was blowing up like a balloon that was too big for the confines of her skull.

"Sorry, Princess." Bellamy murmured, wrapping one hand tighter around Clarke's shoulders and securing the other beneath her knees. She buried her face into his shoulder as the world spun.

"Here." Raven pulled back Clarke's sheets and Bellamy settled her gently into bed. In the absence of Bellamy's warm arms, she shivered and was promptly covered up, the quilt tucked up to her neck and smoothed down around her supine form.

"I'm sorry." She tried to say, but was interrupted by Harper shushing her.

"Don't worry about it, we all get sick sometimes. Hopefully it's just one of those 24-hour flu bugs and you'll be good to go by this time tomorrow." She said kindly.

Clarke was glad that was all the farther Harper was thinking into it. That she had simply caught a virus, an illness that must be endured for a few hours and then put behind you as nothing more than a slight inconvenience.

"Why'd you throw up in the sink instead of the toilet, Clarke!?" Octavia's disgusted voice called from the bathroom and Clarke blinked her eyes open again.

"She couldn't help it!" Harper defended Clarke and Clarke faintly smiled. Bellamy was hovering at her bedside, the only one to witness the expression. Raven was frowning at Octavia who was scowling at the state of the bathroom.

"I'll clean it up." Clarke said, her voice sounding stronger now.

"You will not!" Harper said crossly. "Look, you've made her feel bad now, Octavia."

"She should feel bad. There is vomit in my hairbrush! All in between the bristles."

"I'll get you a new one." Clarke croaked to Octavia, trying to push herself into a sitting position, but her head started to spin. Bellamy was quick to fix a pillow behind her back.

"There." He said,

"Thanks. I'm sorry, Bellamy." Clarke said quietly so no one else in the room would hear. He would know she was talking about more than just having to lift her from the bathroom tile.

"Don't worry about it." Clarke looked up into his earnest brown eyes and only felt more guilty about what she'd said to him.

"I really don't know where I'd be without you."

"Probably still laying on the bathroom floor," He said with a smirk and a shrug. Clarke rolled her eyes and relaxed into the pillow.

Octavia sprayed half a bottle of perfume and Raven opened up the windows. The cool night air was refreshing as it flowed in through the screen and washed over Clarke's face. Harper ordered everyone out so Clarke could rest and the three girls started to clean the bathroom. Bellamy lingered a moment more before leaving, giving Clarke a warm look from the doorway.

Clarke was able to fall asleep quickly that night, and she was grateful for that, as well as her friends. How many people did she know that would clean her vomit up off the sink?

And she'd only known them for a couple of weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aww. Do you just love Bellamy or do you just love Bellamy. :) How about the dynamic of these roommates? Lifelong friends in the making I think.
> 
> This chapter is a little bit...sad, but I just wanted to show where Clarke is at this point. Poor baby. Things do look up from here for her though.
> 
> A huge thank you to everyone who has left comments and kudos, you are all precious angels. They truly do make my day and are fantastic motivation.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and stay safe and healthy.
> 
> -Birch66724


	11. Chapter 11

The following morning, Clarke awoke to darkness in the room. She picked up her phone off the nightstand, someone must have plugged it in for her, to check the time.

6:13

There was also a message from Bellamy.

B: I hope you sleep well tonight Princess. And that you feel better in the morning.

Clarke felt warmed by the kind message. She put her phone down, not wanting to respond and wake Bellamy up, and pulled her covers back. The room was cool, as the window had remained open all night, and it smelled faintly of Octavia's perfume and bleach.

Clarke shut the window and quietly gathered an outfit for the day before going into the bathroom and getting in the shower. She shuddered to think of the state she was in last night, but thrust it from her mind with a shake of her head. She didn't want to think about they way she had felt, the panic rising in her throat. Never in her life had Clarke had a panic attack, but she thought that was what it must be like. It seemed odd to her that it would happen after she got back to her dorm; Finn wasn't even there anymore.

She let the hot water cascade down her face and thought about what she could do to thank her roommates for last night. And Bellamy.

Well, I have to buy Octavia a new brush…

Clarke blanked on what she could do for the others. As far as she knew, she hadn't ruined anything of Raven's or Harper's, so she'd have to think of something original.

The thought dawned on her then, as she scrubbed her scalp with sweet smelling shampoo. Clarke had always had a sort of knack for baking, having to fill her alone time in the house with something, and she knew that the Hall had a kitchen in the basement that students were allowed to use.

Clarke smiled as she toweled off, happy to have settled on something.

"Are you feeling better?" Harper asked when Clarke let her into the bathroom, toothbrush in her mouth.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Harper looked skeptical, placing a hand on Clarke's forehead. "I don't think you have a fever."

"Nope. I'm right as rain."

Harper cringed at the expression. "My uncle used to say that."

"I'm sure he was as right as rain, then."

"He was admitted to a mental hospital." Harper said sourly.

"Oh, well, that's not great."

"He was as cucky as they come though. It was really the best thing for him." Harper said, ever the optimist.

"Happy ending after all then." Clarke spit out the toothpaste and rinsed her mouth.

"I s'pose." Harper started to brush out her long blond hair.

"Thanks for last night, Harper. Sorry I made you guys deal with that."

"No problem." Harper paused and her lip between her teeth, concentrating as she wound her hair up into an effortless bun. "We all get sick sometimes." She secured her hair with a ponytail. "And you'd do the same for any of us." She gave a satisfied smile as she examined her handiwork, then turned her grin on Clarke.

"Of course." Clarke replied.

"Now get outta here, I've got to pee." Clarke rolled her eyes good-naturedly, glad for Harper not pressing her further on the subject of her sudden onset of illness.

Clarke decided it was the culmination of all of her worry and dread and fear, building and building inside of her until it all spilled out in an uncontrollable, involuntary way. It was the climax of sorts of her recovery from her incident, and now she was ready to put in all behind, thinking the road would be mostly smooth from here.

With that attitude, Clarke finished getting ready and left the dorm before Raven even woke up.

Thursday's were Clarke's easy days, with only one afternoon class. She started off at the dining hall and ate a large breakfast, refilling her stomach from what it had emptied itself from last night. Then she moved to the quiet level of the library and started work on some preliminary class assignments, as well as looked up a cake recipe and wrote out a shopping list.

After an uneventful class, Clarke set out on foot to the nearest Target. It was less than a mile away, and Clarke had never minded walking. It gave her lungs some clear air and her mind some scope.

The afternoon was warm, despite the cool night it had blossomed from, but summer was winding down. School was already back in session, the month had changed to September, and fall was firmly on her way. Clarke liked fall. In Oregon, they had spectacular displays of orange and red and yellow leaves changing colors, a perennial painting that settled over the hills and valleys as if it was always meant to be there, though it lasted no more than a few weeks.

When she was younger, Clarke always remembered her father taking her on camping trips and nature hikes in the fall, collecting leaves and pressing them between pages of books and parchment paper. They'd created entire collages from nothing more than those flaky leaves.

Clarke smiled at the memory of her father. She had often wondered if he'd be proud of her now, seeing where she was in life. She missed him. He'd always been the parent she'd turned to when she needed help or reassurance or love, and after he was gone Abby had only thrown herself more deeply into her work. Clarke had been left with a void that was still today making its vastness known. It felt similar in a way to how she felt now, although the situations that caused the emptiness were so dissimilar, and it gave Clarke hope, but also dread.

The void of her father's passing had slowly shrunk with time, the distance between the two sheer sides of the wound slowly moving closer together. The crevice remained though, and Clarke could still be caught up in it. She wondered if this incident would be the same way, shrinking to a crack she could step over, but when she was tired and her feet drug, would she stumble down it again?

Clarke dispelled the thoughts as she arrived at her destination. She hadn't been shopping since moving in the Frontier Hall, and there were some things she needed for herself, in addition to the ingredients she was purchasing for her thank you cake.

Clarke got a cart and started around the store, crossing off all the items on her list and then some. Target sucked her in the way it did everyone, and was there for God knows how long before she pulled herself out of the trance. It was past 8 o'clock. Clarke made an exasperated noise to herself and pushed her full cart to the checkout counter.

After she gathered up her numerous bags, her arms straining, she turned towards the exit, only to pause in her tracks.

An oppressive wall of black stood outside the doors. Clarke felt her throat tighten and she took a step backwards. She couldn't go out into that. The inky blackness that could hide all sorts of things, serving as cover for things lurking, meaning to cause harm.

Clarke stumbled towards a bench by the doors, sitting on the far end and stacking her purchases beside her, her eyes never leaving the darkness that loomed beyond the glass doors. The panic was rising in her throat. She tried to push it down, to bring back all of the good feelings and thoughts she had had during the day, but it only made her groan in frustration. She had had a good day, a great day even, only for darkness to fall and render back to the quivering, terrified girl she had been most of the week.

Stranded in the Target entrance, Clarke was momentarily lost on what to do and her stressed mind tried to make plans for her to sleep on that bench, to go buy a toothbrush and brush her teeth in the Target bathroom, to curl up on the corrugated red metal until the sun rose and lit the way back to her dorm.

After a few deep breaths, and a firm scolding of herself, Clarke came around to her senses. She could call an Uber, they could pick her up right at the front door. That would work. But as she opened the app, all she could imagine was getting into a car, with a man, alone. Just him and her. Nothing to stop him from…

Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!

She could call Raven. Raven would come and walk home with her. But what if Raven was with Finn? What if she brought him along and she had to walk with him, in the darkness?

That wouldn't work. Clarke knew that Harper had some kind of Christian club on Thursday nights, so she was out, and Clarke honestly didn't think Octavia would make her feel any more secure than walking by herself.

And that left one single option, glowing like a fire in the dark expanse of the night. Clarke swallowed.

"Hey, Clarke!" He answered on the second ring, before Clarke's panic had a chance to rise any higher in her throat.

"Bellamy." She exhaled, relieved at the sound of his voice.

"What's up? Is something wrong?" He sounded concerned.

"No! No, not exactly." She said quickly, pausing. Bellamy waited for her to continue. She could hear him breathing on the other end of the line.

"I just uh, came out to Target, and you know how it goes, I spent way too much time, and money, here." Clarke paused and took a deep breath. "And now it's dark and I walked here and I don't think I can walk home alone." She said in a rush, staring at the doors. They reflected her scared face back to her like a mirror.

She listened as Bellamy exhaled and gave a soft chuckled.

"So, you're not in any danger?"

"Not any immediate danger." Clarke said.

"So, what do you want me to do?" Bellamy asked slyly. Clarke could see the smug look on his face in her head. Now that he'd ascertained that she was simply sitting in a Target entryway, he was going to have a little fun with her.

"I was thinking that maybe, you could…" Clarke trailed off, feeling silly.

"I could…?" Bellamy pressed, wanting to hear her make the request. They both knew he would agree to it, but Bellamy wanted the satisfaction of hearing Clarke ask him for help.

"Maybe you could come and walk me home?" Clarke cringed as she asked, blushing like a schoolgirl.

"Ah, I see! The Princess needs her knight in shining armor to escort her." Clarke could hear the smile in his voice.

"Yeah, yeah." Clarke rolled her eyes.

"Absolutely, m'lady. Be there in 10."

Clarke clicked off her phone and settled it in her lap, a faint smile tugging at her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another chapter for you! Sorry it's a bit on the shorter side. Also, I meant to post this 2 days ago, but life has been crazy lately, for everyone I'm sure. I sincerely hope you are all doing well and staying healthy and safe.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts.
> 
> -Birch66724


	12. Chapter 12

Bellamy stood up from his desk and cracked his neck loudly. It reminded him of how Clarke had been amazed, or maybe disgusted?, when he had cracked his back in front of her.

He stretched his arms above his head, muscles stiff from the past few hours spent in the straight-backed library chair. He'd escaped Jasper and Monty for the afternoon because they were drilling holes in the walls so they could hang up hammocks. The noise of their decrepit Black and Decker power drill on the drywall was so loud, he swore it rattled his teeth inside his head.

"Hey."

Bellamy looked up to meet a girl's eyes. She was leaning on her hands on the edge of his table, her chest pressed together by her arms.

"Hey." Bellamy repeated, quickly averting his eyes and pushing back his chair.

"Are you in English 111, with Mrs. Nielsen?"

"Uh, yeah." Bellamy still didn't look up at her. He knew what she was doing, and he couldn't say it was the first time it had happened to him, but Bellamy wasn't exactly privy to the idea.

"Did you get the first assignment?"

"To write a paragraph introducing yourself?" Bellamy asked skeptically, sliding his notebook and laptop into his backpack.

"Yeah…" The girl said, standing up to her full height and flipping her hair over her shoulder. She was rather tall, and thin, with long dark brown hair and a lot of eye makeup.

"It wasn't that bad. I've gotta go, but she posted a full description of the assignment in the class folder." He said, slinging his bag over his shoulder and sidestepping her. She looked sort of hurt and Bellamy felt a twinge of guilt, but not enough to turn around when she called out after him;

"Nice to meet you! See you in class on Friday!"

Bellamy took a deep breath of the night air as the door shut behind him. It was cool and crisp and cleared his head. Bellamy knew he was attractive, and he knew he could have a sort of effect on some girls. It was never something he used to his advantage, mainly because there hadn't been much time in his life to have many girlfriends, but also because the type of girl who would come up to him, all confidence and swagger, wasn't his type.

He smiled to himself then, thinking of Clarke's adorably embarrassed voice over the phone. Not that he was at all romantically interested in Clarke... It was probably just her situation that made her so reserved and shy, now that he thought about it….

Bellamy rounded the corner and saw the bright red sign of the store. He quickened his step, not wanting Clarke to be sitting there alone, worrying any longer than she had to.

"Bellamy!" He heard Clarke as soon as he stepped through the automatic sliding doors. Clarke popped off of the bench she was sitting on and hurried over to meet him halfway across the entrance.

"Hey there, Princess." Bellamy said smoothly.

"Hi. Thanks so much for coming. I'm so sorry. I just, I lost track of the time and then I found this weird cocoa powder and then it was dark outside and then…" Clarke started in a rush then trailed off, one hand on her hip, the other rubbing her forehead.

"Don't worry about it. I haven't gotten my ten-thousand steps yet today anyhow." Bellamy joked, pleased to see a wry grin on Clarke's face.

She walked back over the bench she had been sitting on and starting to gather up her bags.

"Stocking up for winter?" Bellamy questioned as Clarke struggled to fit all of the bag handles onto her hands.

"No… I was uh, just going to make a-." She stopped abruptly. "You can't look at any of this!"

Bellamy cocked a brow, now curious.

"Okay… You know what? I might as well tell you, but it's going to ruin your surprise."

"Surprise? For me?" Bellamy said alluringly.

"Mm hmm, yes, you. And Octavia and Raven and Harper. I felt bad about the… scene I made… in the bathroom, so I decided to bake you all a cake to thank you." Clarke explained, hefting up the bags.

"Ooh, I like cake." Bellamy winked at Clarke without knowing why. He shifted his weight and he swore he saw Clarke blush behind her thick blond hair.

"Yeah, cake's good." She nodded.

"Let me take some of those." Bellamy offered, leaning down. Clarke gratefully offloaded some of the weight.

"Thanks."

"Of course, Princess. If anyone asks, you can just say you needed my help carrying all of this."

Clarke nodded, facing the door. Bellamy watched her emotion play over her face in the reflection of the dark glass; apprehension and worry and fear.

"Ready?" He asked gently and Clarke nodded softly. Bellamy didn't know Clarke's exact reasoning behind her sudden fear of the dark, but it obviously stemmed from the common branch.

They walked through the sliding door into the night. Clarke walked slowly, but once they were onto the sidewalk in front of the store, her pace quickened until they were clipping along. Neither of them spoke for a couple minutes.

Clarke's back was rigid and she glanced about as if she was waiting for something to jump out at her from the shadows.

Bellamy wanted to try to ease some of her tension.

"What kind of cake are you making?" He started.

"What?"

Bellamy was about to repeat his question before Clarke started talking again.

"Sorry, I heard you, I'm just- Anyway, German Chocolate. I know some people don't like coconut, but you can always eat around the frosting."

"German Chocolate is my favorite." Bellamy said.

"Really?" Clarke questioned, looking up at him for the first time.

"Yep." Bellamy said breezily. He had never had German Chocolate cake once in his life.

"I think I'm going to make it tomorrow night." Clarke said. Bellamy swore he could hear her hinting at something, so he jumped in and said;

"I'll be there."

Clarke looked curiously up at him. Had he misjudged the inflection of her voice? "You much of a baker, Blake?"

"Absolutely." Bellamy lied through his teeth again, pleased to see Clarke's shoulders relax.

"Alright."

They walked on, turning the corner back onto campus.

"I think you'd better get one of those little carts to bring with you next time."

"The ones that old ladies bring to bingo?"

"Exactly!" Bellamy agreed, rolling his shoulders. Clarke's laughter was bright.

"Then I'd have to start going to Wednesday night bingo, and Thursday knitting circle, and then visit the grand kids on Saturday. And Sunday morning church, oh! And breakfast afterwards with the church ladies!" Clarke chirped.

"And don't forget to ask for your senior discount at the restaurant." Bellamy exclaimed and they both laughed. Clarke trailed off, shaking her head with a small smile. Her face was shadowed as they walked out from under a circle of light from a streetlamp. Their black shadows stretched long in front of them on the uneven sidewalk, bobbing along as the walked.

They continued quietly for a bit. Bellamy didn't have anything to say really, and Clarke seemed comfortable in silence, until a pair of boys turned the corner in front of them, headed towards them. They were laughing loudly, each holding a blue can of Bud Light.

Bellamy heard Clarke suck in a breath and stiffen.

"It's okay." He murmured, taking a slight step in front of her, her Target bags brushing against the backs of his thighs. He kept his eyes on the two guys as he continued walking. Clarke pressed herself to him. Bellamy felt her faint breath on his back.

One of the guys gave a curious look at Bellamy. He returned it with a tight smile and a nod and they passed without question, still in boisterous conversation about some pickup truck that one of their uncles had wrapped around a tree then turned into a demo car.

"It was the sickest damn thing I'd ever seen! The bed bent around at a like, 100 degree angle, or whatever the square one is." The first guy was talking with his hands as he passed by.

Bellamy stepped away from Clarke a few seconds after their voices had faded slightly. Her head was craned around, watching them with distrust and worry.

"Why are they drunk already, it's like," Clarke frowned and asked without moving her gaze. "What time even is it?"

"Uh, 9:30." Bellamy checked his phone.

"What?" Clarke sounded shocked.

"Mm hmm. Actually it's 9:32, but close enough."

"Oh God, when did it get so late?" Clarke started muttering, finally dragging her eyes away and fumbling for her phone which was in her back pocket. Her hands were hindered by her bags and she was breathing roughly.

"Woah, take it easy, Clarke," Bellamy tried to soothe. She looked up at him with scared eyes. They reflected silver in the yellow streetlight.

"No, no. I told Raven I should be home before 8! She must be wondering where I am, what if-what if they come looking for me? What if she asks- him to help!" Clarke finally freed her phone and clicked it awake, the blue-white light beaming out of it.

"See! She texted me three, no! Four times!" The bag handles slid to Clarke's elbows as she held her phone with both hands. Bellamy could see the angry red lines they were impressing on her pale skin even in the dim light.

"Clarke! Relax." He reached out and lowered her hands. She startled at his touch, but she quickly focused on Bellamy's face with wide eyes.

"Raven just cares. Text her that you'll be home in ten. No one is going to come looking for you, and even if they did, you'd be fine."

Clarke resisted his words, maintaining her rigid posture for another long moment before nodding. "Okay, okay yeah, you're right, I'm crazy." She gave a strangled chuckle and Bellamy's brow knit together.

"I'm actually going insane." Clarke reiterated, tucking her phone back into her pocket without texting Raven and started to pace. "Ever since this, this thing, I haven't been able to think straight. Think at all! I think something got messed up in my head. I can't seem to be reasonable. I know I'm being crazy. Irrational! Stupid! But I don't even know. I had such a great day today, and now..." She stopped suddenly, eyes transfixed on a weed growing from a crack in the sidewalk.

Bellamy broke inside again, his chest twisting at the sight of her, so confused and broken.

"Clarke."

Her head snapped up, as if his voice was going to be the answer to all of her problems, but before she was ready to have her questions solved, she had more to say.

"It's not fair, what I'm doing to you. I can't confide all of this to you." She started to pace again. "This isn't your responsibility, I'm sorry I called you. Again. But I really do appreciate you, I do, but you can't drop everything you're doing to help me. I'm actually insane right now. I always thought I was so level headed, but here I am, flying off the rails. I-"

"Clarke!" Bellamy interrupted her before she could go on. He couldn't stand her saying the things she was. "Don't say that. You're not crazy." Bellamy said exasperated, then inhaled sharply and repeated himself. "You're not crazy. You're- you're strong and brave and independent and resilient. In fact, I don't know how you're coping as well as you are. You're still standing. Hell, getting yourself out of bed would be an accomplishment, but you're taking care of yourself and going to classes and baking a Goddamned cake!"

Bellamy stopped talking as soon as he saw the tears glistening on Clarke's face. Perhaps he was being too harsh. He wasn't exactly speaking in a comforting tone…

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that, I meant…" Bellamy trailed off as Clarke stepped to his side and pressed herself against his chest. Her warm breath came through his thin t-shirt in gentle puffs. He could feel her tears, wet on his skin. Her shoulders shook once.

Bellamy didn't know what to do. He wanted so desperately to wrap his arms around Clarke, to gather her up and hug her to his chest. He wanted to bury his face in her hair and stroke her back.

But he didn't. He followed her lead and stood there, letting her cry into him. He clutched the handle of the plastic bags and comforted Clarke without touching her. She didn't wrap her arms around his chest. Bellamy hoped it was because she too was holding her groceries, and not because she didn't want to.

"I'm sorry. So sorry." Clarke murmured, pressing the crown of her head to Bellamy and staring at the ground.

"You have nothing to be sorry for. I never liked this shirt anyways."

Bellamy heard Clarke's little sniffle of laughter and knew she was going to be alright, and he was going to be by her side every step of the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN_
> 
> I promised things were going to get better for Clarke, and they are, but the road of healing is a bumpy one and she's still navigating it. I hope no one is getting bored/irritated at this point, but I am just writing what I feel. Anyway, that was kind of a rant, my apologies, just wanted to say that.
> 
> Do you have any guesses as to who that girl in library is? I would love to hear what you think and if anyone is able to figure it out.
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> -Birch66724


	13. Chapter 13

Clarke kept her eyes trained on the ground as Bellamy held the door for her. The lights in the lobby of Frontier Hall were stark and revealing, and Clarke didn't want anyone to see her tear streaked face.

"Elevator or stairs?" Bellamy asked.

"Elevator," Clarke replied. Although she didn't think she could ever step into that box by herself, Bellamy's presence was comforting. Clarke stepped closer to him as the doors slid shut behind them. Thankfully, no one else was on board.

"Do you want to keep this stuff in my room, so Raven doesn't see it?" Bellamy asked, gesturing with his bag.

Clarke hadn't thought about that. "Oh, good point. That would be great."

" 'Course, Princess," Bellamy said. Clarke glanced up, but her eyes never made it to his smiling face. They got stuck on the wet splotches she'd made on his t-shirt. Heat rose to her cheeks and she scuffled her shoes on the worn carpet. Clarke was endlessly embarrassed at her breakdown on the sidewalk, and at Bellamy's words, though they were comforting and did make her feel better, felt like a taunt of everything she wanted to be, but was falling short of the mark.

The elevator opened on the third floor and they walked down the hall towards Bellamy's door. Clarke could hear comotion behind the door before Bellamy even opened it.

"I swear to God if my bed is covered in dirt again…" He growled under his breath as he shoved open the door.

"Again?" Clarke felt her mouth quirk.

"These two are insane."

An odd white light beamed out into the hall, illuminating Clarke's legs.

"Oh, Bellamy. Hey." Bellamy flicked on the lightswitch and narrowed his eyes.

"Why are you over here, Monty?" Bellamy questioned coldly.

"We're just working on a, uh, project."

Bellamy grumbled and walked into the room. Clarke peaked around the frame to see a boy standing there, looking slightly guilty. He was wearing a dark green shirt with jeans and fiddling with some kind of device in his hands. His black hair shone in the white light and his skin was olive-toned.

"Alright, where's the other one at?" Bellamy asked, setting the Target bags down heavily on the desk. He looked like a Dad, with one brow raised in question and a slight look of disappointment on his face.

"Oh! You've got company," Monty said, avoiding the question and smiling at Clarke.

"Hi." Clarke said softly, placing her bags beside the other ones and quickly wiping her eyes.

"I'd better leave you two, then." Monty made for the door. Bellamy blocked his path.

"This is Clarke." Bellamy looked up at her, then back at Monty, "And we're friends." He said firmly, eyeing Monty testily.

"Of course." Monty stepped back from Bellamy, who towered over him and extended a hand to her. "Nice to meet you, Clarke. I'm Monty Green." Clarke took his offered hand and gave it a shake. When finished with their greeting, he tapped on the device in his other hand and the white light clicked off, it's source yet unknown.

Monty stepped back, pursing his lips and rocking on his heels.

"Still, I'd better get going anyways." He nodded towards the door.

"Where's Jasper?"

"He's not here,"

"Yes, he is," Bellamy insisted. "Tell me where, Monty." Clarke traced the room with her eyes, seeing nowhere a teenaged boy could be hiding, unless he was exceptionally small? Clarke had never met Jasper before, but she could only assume he was a regularly sized person.

Bellamy continued to pepper Monty with a stream of questions as Clarke sorted her groceries, her personal things in one bag and the ingredients for her planned cake in another couple. She moved to set the bags out of Bellamy's way, on the floor by the spare bed, when she noticed that both of the drawers under the mattress were cracked open.

Clarke nudged one closed with her foot, only for it to be met with resistance. She kicked on it harder, and it made a noise.

"Aarge!"

Clarke gasped and stumbled back.

"Clarke?" Bellamy asked, breaking off his harsh words to Monty and steadying Clarke with a hand on each of her shoulders. Even though she knew it was just Bellamy, Clarke still jumped at the touch and Bellamy released her immediately.

"What's wrong?" He asked. Clarke nodded towards the bed. One of the drawers shifted. A door shut behind them.

"Monty!" Bellamy growled, but didn't pursue the boy. Instead he stepped in front of Clarke and pulled out one of the drawers.

"Shit." A voice echoed from within the wooden frame. A plume of dust caught in the light as Bellamy dragged a squirming boy out from under the bed. Clarke pressed herself back against Bellamy's bed, bumping her knees against the edge. She sat down lightly, wide-eyed and shocked.

"Jasper, what in the hell?" Bellamy was truly mad in a way that Clarke hadn't seen before. He glared daggers at the younger boy, gripping his shoulders with white knuckles.

"I uh, you know what Monty said, about the uh, the experiment?" Jasper's voice rose on the last few syllables as he made a fleeting gesture towards the closed bathroom door.

"Save the bullshit." Bellamy growled, roughly shoving Jasper towards the door. Jasper scrambled for the knob, only to find it locked from the inside. Clarke looked at his odd getup, faintly amused underneath her shock. He had on black jeans and a baggy zip up, along with a medical looking mask and ski goggles. He looked like a child playing dress up, some kind of space doctor coming to save Earth from an alien invasion.

"Monty, let me in." He rapped on the door, pressing his cheek to the particle board and throwing glances back at Bellamy, before he even realized that Clarke was perched on the edge of his bed.

"Oh, hello there." Jasper drawled. He sounded like a fool.

"Uhm, no, I don't think so," Bellamy jostled the door handle, and averted Jasper's gaze from Clarke. Now she was definitely amused.

"Monty, if you open this door right now, I won't make you explain what the hell you two were doing!" Bellamy yelled. He had Jasper pinned to the door, though he was ducking underneath Bellamy's arm, eyeing Clarke.

The door swung open and Jasper stumbled in, mouthing 'Call me!' to Clarke with his hand held to his ear like a phone.

"Out!" Bellamy ordered and slammed the door shut, leaning against it with an exasperated sigh. Clarke could hear Monty and Jasper giggling like a pair of girls in the bathroom.

"Nobody messes with my room! Or looks at my girlfriend!" Jasper mimicked Bellamy in a comically low voice and Monty's muffled laughter followed.

Clarke giggled and Bellamy glanced up at her. She watched his frustration melt from his face.

"What?" He asked with a crooked smile.

"Oh, nothing," Clarke smiled sweetly at him. He stayed leaning against the door.

"I told you they are actually insane. Sorry Jasper scared the crap out of you."

"He did not!" Clarke protested.

"Oh really?"

"Yes, I was just…. Startled, is all."

"Clarke, you were as white as a ghost." Bellamy teased. He walked over to the bed and heaved himself up like it was chore and settled beside Clarke, keeping a respectful distance. "You still are."

"That's racist," Clarke said. "I can't help the color of my skin."

"Oh, Clarke." Bellamy rolled his eyes, laying down on the bed.

"Hmm?"

"What?"

"What?"

"Oh, nothing."

Clarke scoffed and backhanded Bellamy in the ribs.

"Oof," He crumpled into a ball as if Clarke had hurt him. His weight shifted the bed and the blankets rustled under them.

"So, I'm your girlfriend now?" Clarke asked playfully.

"What?" Bellamy sat up, ramrod straight.

Clarke felt her pulse quicken at his reaction and quickly explained. "Jasper said- he was teasing you- when you- for him saying-"

"Oh!" Bellamy sighed and Clarke could swear she saw a faint blush pushing its way to the surface of his sun-tanned cheeks.

"Yeah, I was just- making a joke." Clarke shuffled away from him slightly, her chest fluttering. Somehow she was somewhat- disappointed?- by his immediate reaction to her tease.

"What? You think being in a relationship with me would be a joke?" Bellamy asked. He had resumed his lying position and looked up at Clarke through his lashes.

"No, I don't." She started to say, then looked away. She knew she was blushing, it was hard to hide anything behind these 'ghost white cheeks'. Why though? She had no attraction to Bellamy Blake. And there was no way he had feelings for her, not with his knowledge about her...circumstance.

"Okay." Bellamy said easily, backing off from the subject. Bellamy contorted everything around Clarke. He was just too good. Clarke felt a prick of guilt replace the blush, thinking about the way he changed what he wanted to say and do and how he acted according to her reactions. Even though he was subtle about it, Clarke noticed. Of course she did. There was a reason Bellamy was the only person she felt comfortable around.

"It would not be a joke. I'm sure you would be just the- sweetest boyfriend." Clarke said, laying back on the bed so Bellamy couldn't see her face. Her feet hung above the floor by several inches, where the soles of Bellamy's shoes skimmed the carpet.

"Huh," Bellamy scoffed.

"What? You would. You're a good guy." Clarke insisted.

"Thanks, Princess."

Clarke turned her head to look at him. Bellamy gazed up at the ceiling, a wistful-like expression playing on his face.

"You don't agree?" She asked, propping up on her elbow to get his attention. She was curious about his scant responses.

Bellamy turned his head on the blanket. His already messy curly hair turned staticky at the interaction, sticking up in little spikes and fuzzy clumps. Clarke swallowed her urge to reach out and smooth it down. It was the first time she had felt an urge to initiate contact with anyone since the incident.

"Oh, I don't know." Bellamy said faintly, his gaze just above Clarke's eyes.

"What do you mean by that?"

Bellamy didn't answer. His gaze slipped into space and his thumb rubbed absent circles on the blanket, patterning the fabric with an ever changing loop.

Clarke laid back down. She should get back to her room. Raven would definitely be wondering where she was. It had to be nearing 10:30 by this point. But something kept her rooted to the bed, whether it was the rhythm of Bellamy's steady breathing or the comfort that the room seemed to provide, Clarke didn't know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I have a couple pieces of exciting news, so read if you want.
> 
> 1\. I have found a beta-reader and I am so so excited about it. Thank you a hundred times, kyliEisMC2. I know you'll help me make my writing the best it can be. :)
> 
> 2\. My brother was accepted to the University of Minnesota! Woo hoo! I'm so proud of him, he has worked so hard, and now, hopefully, I can get some insider knowledge. Haha. He won't be going for several months, but my family is going to be making a visit as soon as they open up their facilities again. (we also have plans to attend a Gopher's football game, and I'm pumped.)
> 
> As always, thanks for reading!
> 
> -Birch66724


	14. Chapter 14

Bellamy lay on the bed, fully absorbed in the pattern of Clarke's breathing. She had abandoned her line of questioning when she had lain down beside him, falling still in the quiet of the room. Bellamy thought she had fallen asleep, but then he saw her eyelashes flicker and she sniffed, causing her nose to crinkle and Bellamy's chest swelled. He tried to ignore the feeling that flowed like a tangible liquid, but it was insistent.

"I'm sure you would be just the sweetest boyfriend," Clarke's words echoed in his mind. Bellamy wasn't sure whether they were true or not. He hoped they would be.

Clarke shifted beside him, sitting up, drawing Bellamy from his musings.

"I should go," Clarke said softly, stifling a yawn. She laid the back of her hand over her open mouth.

"Yeah. It's late," Bellamy said, groaning as he stood up. Clarke looked at him while she tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear.

"You don't have to walk me up. I'm good."

"I'd feel better if I came with you," Bellamy said, and loved Clarke's shy smile.

"I mean, I won't say no." Her mouth morphed into a wry grin.

Bellamy offered Clarke his hand and she didn't hesitate to take it. He pulled her to her feet and she let go, far too soon for Bellamy's liking. He opened the door and they walked into the hall. There was one boy walking back to his dorm at the end, fumbling with his key and an armload of books.

"Sorry I didn't respond to your questions," Bellamy said quickly. He wanted to apologize, but the words were uncomfortable.

"Don't be sorry," Clarke said, understanding. "I won't bring it up again."

"No, that's not what I mean," Bellamy quickly said. Clarke looked up at him with a raised brow. "I just, oh God, you're going to laugh at me." Bellamy pushed in his eyes with his palms, groaning out the words.

"What? I would never!" Clarke protested brightly. She had her back pressed against the door to the stairwell, blocking the way. Her eyes had a glint to them, she wasn't going to move until he told her. After all, Bellamy was the one who'd brought it back up.

"So?" Clarke prodded, nodding expectantly.

"Clarke…" Bellamy pleaded, dropping his head to one side and making a puppy-dog face up at her.

"Hey, you brought it up again! I was going to let you get off scot free!"

"Mmm, yes. Well…" Bellamy scratched the back of his neck. Clarke's face was all eager anticipation and amusement as she waited patiently, standing on her toes to block the handle of the door.

Bellamy swallowed and said it. "I wouldn't know if I was a -uh good boyfriend because I've never had a girlfriend before." Bellamy ducked his head.

"What!" Clarke yelled.

"Hey!" Bellamy jumped back as Clarke hit him in the arm.

"Don't lie to me!" Clarke scoffed. "Bellamy Blake! Never had a girlfriend!"

"Keep it down!" Bellamy hushed her. He actually was embarrassed about this, and at having to tell Clarke, but her reaction was keeping a smile on his face.

"I don't believe it for a second!" Clarke exclaimed, shaking her head.

"I know it's hard to believe that anyone could resist me, but..." He replied.

"Ugh!" Clarke rolled her eyes and pushed her way into the stairwell. She jogged up the first flight of stairs before spinning around on the edge of the landing. Bellamy was still on the first step, looking up at her. She gave him a puzzled look, then scoffed again and shook her head.

"Clarke!" Bellamy bounded up the stairs three at a time to meet her at the top where she stood still with her hands clasped behind her back.

"I simply won't believe your lies," she said, tipping her nose in the air in mock superiority.

"Ask Octavia if you don't think I'm telling the truth," Bellamy challenged, then regretted even suggesting it when Clarke's eyes flashed. He did not want to end up in a conversation concerning his romantic past with his sister. Octavia was sure to inform Clarke of some rather… unsavory things.

"I just might," Clarke said, turning and lightly jogging up the rest of the stairs to the fourth floor. She noisily pushed the door open and slipped into the dim hallway. Bellamy didn't even think about not following her, using his long legs to his advantage and catching up to Clarke as she strode down the hall.

She was the picture of confidence at this moment, all playful mischief and bold statements. It was hard to imagine that she had been scared to walk home alone in the dark or crying into his chest just half an hour before.

Bellamy couldn't help the pang that formed in his chest. He knew just how hard Clarke was fighting against the dark feelings raging inside of her. She was determined, stubborn, and hard on herself.

Just as Clarke was about to reach for the handle of her door, it opened from the inside. She startled and jumped back, bumping into Bellamy who had come up behind her, which only made her stumble farther away. Bellamy quickly steadied her with a hand on her arm.

"Clarke, what the hell!" Raven's voice was loud and harsh. She met Bellamy's gaze with an unreadable expression before her eyes flickered down to his hand, still holding Clarke steady.

"Hi," Clarke said lamely.

"Where have you been? You said you were going to be home at like eight or something and it's almost eleven! I thought you got kidnapped or sex trafficed or got sick again or something," Raven grumbled, retreating back into the room. She didn't see how Clarke quivered at her words. Bellamy felt it though, the goosebumps that raised on her skin and the way she shrank back in on herself.

"Yeah," she started faintly. "I uh, went shopping, then I got distracted, and I uh, ran into Bellamy. Sorry I didn't text."

"It's fine," Raven softened slightly. "I just worry, you know? Someone has to look out for you."

"Thanks Raven. I'd do the same for you."

"Sweet," Raven said dryly, gathering up a bundle of clothes from her bed. "I'm going to shower."

Bellamy followed Clarke a few feet into her dorm as Raven swung open the bathroom door, revealing Octavia at the sink, brushing her teeth.

"Bell?" She asked around her toothbrush, her face changing into a scowl.

Bellamy glanced up, not having seen her until she spoke.

"Hey, O."

Clarke looked between the siblings before turning her back and busying herself at her desk. Bellamy cringed, knowing he was about to get an earful from his sister.

"What are you doing here?" Octavia asked harshly, spitting her toothpaste into the sink while she waited for an answer. Bellamy didn't know what to say, so he stuck with the lie that Clarke had started to Raven.

"Oh God, here we go," Raven muttered, plunking down on the toilet seat to wait for the bathroom to be free.

"Nothin'. Just met Clarke walking home, and came upstairs with her," Bellamy said breezily, shooting a glance at Clarke's still turned back.

Octavia glared at him, but Bellamy kept his cool. Lately, Octavia had been on a independance kick, resenting any sort of help or guidance that he offered her. She wanted nothing to do with her big brother since coming to college. Of course, Bellamy couldn't completely leave her alone, someone needed to keep tabs on her, and that job had always been his.

"It's true," Clarke corroborated Bellamy's story, turning around slowly and biting her lip.

Octavia turned her glare to Clarke. "You sure? Because I don't need you to lie for Bellamy, so he can come up here to- to babysit me!" Octavia yelled.

Bellamy felt his jaw tighten.

"That's not-" he tried to interject calmly, but Octavia cut him off.

"I'm an adult, Bellamy! Eighteen years old! I can take care of myself!" She slammed the toothbrush down on the counter and stalked passed Raven, slamming the opposite bathroom door and disappearing into her dorm.

"More like fourteen years old," Bellamy grumbled, embarrassed on his sister's behalf. Raven snorted and stood.

"Have fun with that." She grinned at Bellamy as she pushed the door closed. The shower started up a moment later. Bellamy took a deep breath and let it out in an attempt to quell the irritation and anger brewing within him.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Clarke shook her head and stared with wide eyes at the floor.

"Clarke? No it's not your-"

"Yes! It is my fault! I am getting your life all messed up," she fretted, turning and compulsively smoothing her comforter.

"Messed up how?" Bellamy asked.

"With Octavia, I made her yell and get mad at you," she sniffed, moving on to adjusting her pillowcase.

"She'd do that anyway. It's what little sisters do." Bellamy leaned against the wall.

"And I always interrupt you. You're busy, and I just call you and you answer right away and…" Clarke trailed off.

"Yeah? Trust me Clarke, you calling me is not a big deal."

"Okay," she conceded. "And I ruined your shirt!"

Bellamy chuckled and Clarke looked up at him with doe eyes.

"I'm serious! I feel bad about it."

"Don't."

"That doesn't help."

"Will your cake help? Pay me back in chocolate."

"It'll make me feel better," Clarke said firmly.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Princess."

"It will help me sleep. Now go on! I won't keep you any longer." Clarke started to push him towards the door. Bellamy dug in his heels and grinned at her.

"Bellamy! Go to sleep! I'm not going to keep you up late again."

"What if I want you to?" Bellamy said and Clarke froze. He regretted it for a moment, thinking he'd scared her, until she looked up.

"Don't say that," she said in a whisper.

"Okay," he said easily, because he could see, plain as day, that her words didn't agree with her emotions.

"Have a good night," Clarke said once she had Bellamy in the hallway.

"You too, and don't hesitate to text me if you need anything, Princess," Bellamy said over his shoulder, grinning to himself as he walked down the hall. He heard Clarke's fond scoff trailing him.


	15. Chapter 15

Clarke stared at the closed door, imagining Bellamy walking down the hall, pushing open the door to the stairwell, plodding down them, back out into the hall, opening his door, and sitting on the edge of his bed. Right beneath her.

She took a steadying breath and changed into her pajama shorts and a tee, consciously keeping her mind blank. It kept leaning towards thoughts over her evening's companion, and then to her embarrassment about crying on him, then to the warm feeling he'd left with her, after his comment...

Clarke pushed it down.

There was no way should be feeling like this right now; that giddy, bubbly feeling you got when you noticed for the first time how cute the boy who sat in front of you in math was, or saw that the waiter was giving you an eye and a flirtatious smile, so you wrote your phone number on the receipt.

She forced the thoughts from her head. She had thought she hadn't wanted to be touched by another man as long as she lived.

Unless that man was Bellamy Blake.

"No!" She said aloud, stumbling back and half falling into her desk chair. It almost felt like a betrayal of her wounded pride and scarred emotions to be moving on so quickly. Suddenly, Bellamy's warm smile contorted into Finn's sickening grin, and Bellamy's soothing hug turned to a vice grip around her shoulders, and all she could see was Finn. All she could think of was the fact that she was not moving on quickly, that she didn't know if she would ever move on.

So she sat, head in her hands, trying to take calming breaths and keep her mind blank, because her emotions were too strong, too confusing, and she just couldn't sort through them. She compartmentalized them within her head, packing them up in neat little boxes, sealing some with thick layers of tape and leaving others with the flaps hanging open, contents spilling over the edge. Some thoughts she wanted to keep within easy reach, so she could mull them over, relive them, and some she wished she could banish from her head and never give a second thought to. So, she did the next best thing: wrapped them up tight, stuffing them into dark recesses of her mind where they could hopefully stay hidden.

After several long moments, the shower shut off. The barely noticeable hum in the wall ceased and the dorm felt vacant. Clarke was glad when Raven emerged with a swath of steam a few minutes later, her long black hair leaving wet lines on the back of her pale blue sleep shirt.

"So, what's new Clarke?" She asked, hanging her towel over her chair.

"Nothing. Sorry I didn't let you know, I just got caught up and…"

"No, no! Completely fine," Raven turned and smirked at her roommate. "I understand that you were...busy."

It took a moment for Clarke to grasp what Raven was insinuating. "Absolutely not! We were outside!" Clarke objected, flustered.

"Oo, exotic," Raven teased. "Tried that a time or two, sort of adds that extra little exhilaration, you know? That you could be caught at any moment."

"Nope," Clarke said firmly. She could feel the flush on her face and hoped Raven didn't perceive it as incriminating.

"Okay, keep your secrets," Raven winked, returning to the bathroom and brushing through her wet hair. Clarke remained, frozen to her chair, both terrified and strangely lightheaded at Raven's thoughts about how her evening had transpired.

"Bellamy is pretty hot," Raven said wryly, lowering her voice as she leaned around the door frame.

"Raven!" Clarke yelped.

"What? It's not like Finn cares. Well, he might. Don't tell him I said, okay?"

"I would never," Clarke growled.

"I like your loyalty! I bet you'd be a type nine," Raven said. Clarke's head started spinning at the mention of his name, but she gripped the edge of her desk until the wood started to dig into her palms, grounding her.

"Type… nine?" Clarke questioned to continue the conversation in a direction other than Bellamy.

"Yeah. Enneagrams? Have you ever done those?" Raven leaned into the mirror and scratched at her front teeth.

"No,"

"Huh. They're fun, I think. We did 'em in high school for some psychology class. They are like personality numbers. Tells what you're like from a little quiz."

"Hmm," Clarke had in fact heard of Enneagrams, but was rather disinterested in the topic.

"But other than that, I hated that class. I don't like all that mind brain stuff. I like working with my hands, doing something where I can actually see the result."

"I get that. That's why I like medicine. You can see if what you're doing is having an effect on the patient," Clarke agreed, willingly changing topics.

"Yeah. That's good."

"It is," Clarke yawned. She glanced at the alarm on Raven's desk. 11:42PM.

"I'm going to bed. You staying up?" Raven asked as she climbed into her bed.

Clarke yawned again as she stood. "No, no. Just going to brush my teeth quick."

"Okay."

"Hey, what happened to you not liking to shower at night?" Clarke questioned as Raven flicked her damp hair over her shoulder with a scowl.

She shrugged in response, then added dismissively, "Gotta switch it up sometimes, I guess."

"Huh,"

"Goodnight Clarke."

"Goodnight."

"And hey," Raven called.

"What?"

"Don't be afraid to tell me about Bellamy, I'm happy to discuss." Raven winked.

Clarke rolled her eyes and shut herself in the bathroom. She was going to have to be careful with Bellamy, so Raven didn't get any more ideas. Unless that would be good…? Distract from the past and move on to something new. Raven would never suspect a thing with Finn if Clarke was involved with Bellamy.

Clarke's thoughts swirled as she stood at the sink. Never did Clarke want to tell anyone about what Finn did to her, but what if it was for Raven's safety? How could a man who could attack a girl be a pleasant boyfriend?

Raven had never let on to any form of abuse in her relationship, but then again, Clarke hadn't known her very long, and Finn and Raven had been together practically forever. Perhaps she had gotten so good at hiding it over the years? But no, Raven was bold and strong and Clarke knew she wouldn't sit still if she was abused. She would stand up for herself, get help and face the problem head on in a way Clarke couldn't.

It made her feel weak, the realization that this incident was so deeply buried within her, with roots stretching out into every inch of her body, coiling abound her bones and working its way into her heart and soul. It was a crushing weight.

Clarke stared at herself in the mirror. At her ashen skin and sunken cheeks, dark circles under her dull eyes and stringy hair. She looked like a shadow of her former self. Clarke knew she had lost several pounds over the past week, making negative progress on gaining her 'freshman fifteen'.

Clarke's resolve hardened then. This wasn't going to break her. She was strong, and she could move on. College was meant to be the best time of her life, and Finn wasn't going to ruin that. Clarke would move on. She would take care of herself, excel in school, and have a social life.

"I can do this," she whispered to herself, then smiled. She could do this. She would do this.


	16. Chapter 16

Bellamy yawned wide and flopped down on his bed, rubbing his eyes and arching his back in a stretch. It took him a moment to process the last hour. Clarke had turned to him in a time of need, then turned to a puddle in his arms. Octavia was being defiant, like usual, and Bellamy still hadn't finished his Intro assignment for College Algebra.

He yawned again as he stood and stripped off his clothes, tossing them to the floor and slipping on a pair of loose basketball shorts; his usual sleeping attire. He plopped down at his desk and pulled out his laptop and got to work, after setting his phone beside the computer to watch for any incoming messages.

It was nearing 1:00 AM and Bellamy could barely keep his eyes open. The assignment was nearly finished, and it wasn't due until class at 11:00AM.

"Good enough," He muttered and slapped the laptop closed. Math had never been his strong suit. He hadn't received notifications on his phone, either from Clarke or Octavia or anyone else, although he wouldn't be expecting anyone else besides those two to contact him, especially at this time of night.

Bellamy slid into bed and was grateful that Jasper and Monty were having a quiet night after being busted earlier. He sprawled out as much as he was able to on the twin sized mattress and got comfortable. Bellamy worked through his usual nightly routine of thinking about his mother, telling himself he ought try to call her the next day, but never actually doing it. He made the mental reminder that he needed to send in some more money for her commissary account. It had been several weeks and she was probably running low by now.

Then he moved on to Octavia. Something about her outburst in Clarke's room rubbed him the wrong way, and Bellamy resolved to follow up with his little sister in the morning, even if that meant getting barked at again.

Bellamy moved onto the final person on his checklist. Clarke. He had unconsciously added her to his nighttime routine sometime over the last week. Now was the first time he had really paused to consider it. His list consisted of those he took care of, looked out for, loved.

Somehow, Clarke had slipped in there. Bellamy smiled to himself in the darkness as he thought about the way her face lit up when he walked into Target to come walk her home. Like a knight in shining armor coming to rescue his princess, though her situation was far from a fairy tale.

He was already looking forward to her cake, though he still wasn't exactly sure what German Chocolate was; he'd forgotten to look it up. It didn't matter though, because Bellamy knew that even if he didn't like it - which he severely doubted he could meet a cake he didn't like - he would eat it anyways, just so Clarke felt like she had 'repaid' him.

Classes were dull the following morning. Bellamy wasn't going for a specific degree right now, so he was just getting all of his gen-eds out of the way. It was basically like a harder version of high school. On the docket for today was College Algebra and Biology 111. Biology was better than math, but still not Bellamy's thing. He liked to work with his hands and with people. Why learn about the life cycle of red algae when you could be helping someone with something important?

The highlight of the science hour was receiving a text from Clarke. It read:

C: When are you going to be back? You're holding all my flour hostage in your dorm!

Bellamy smiled and checked the time.

B: 20 mins.

C: Might have to break down your door...

B: Try not to Princess. C u soon.

C: Too much to type out 'see you soon'?

B: Obviously. Ttyl.

It took a moment for Clarke's next message to come through, but it was worth the wait. It was one of those pictures that moved when you pressed down on them. Octavia used to send those all the time, to the point were Bellamy stopped watching them.

It was a short looping gif of that overweight black guy, the one from The Office, who's name Bellamy couldn't quite remember, rolling his eyes and looking utterly fed up. He chuckled aloud, both at the humor of the gif, and at Clarke for sending it, which garnered the attention of the classmate directly on his left. He clicked his phone off and discreetly slid it into his pocket, morphing his laugh into a strangled cough that was much louder than he intended. The professor's gaze, which had been roaming over her students, honed in on Bellamy as he shuffled in his seat, splaying his knees to sink further down and hiding his face with a hand placed over his mouth. The professor raised a brow, but didn't miss a beat in her lecture, continuing on with her explanation of modernizing ecology as if a student potentially choking didn't detract from the importance of the lesson.

Bellamy laid low for the rest of the class, only moving from his uncomfortable position when the rest of his classmates started to pack up their things. It was a big lecture hall, most of the gen-ed classes had 70 or more students in them, so he was easily able to slip in with the crowd making their way down the steps.

The professor was a relatively young looking woman who spoke passionately about her subject. She was intriguing enough to have held Bellamy's attention through the beginning part of the class, so that made her a good teacher in his book. Of course, once Clarke had texted him, all of his focus had gone out the window.

Now, the professor stood at the door, chatting and saying goodbye to her students as they filed out into the building, either back to their dorms or the library or to their next class.

Bellamy gave her a smile and a nod and felt regretful that he hadn't bothered to learn her name yet. She raised a brow and held her fingers to her ear in a phone gesture.

He stopped abruptly, causing the girl walking behind him to bump into his back. She muttered an apology and walked roughly around him, but Bellamy hardly noticed in his shock.

Did his professor just ask him to call her?

"Mr. Blake?" she questioned, frowning at him.

"Sorry," he spluttered, rubbing his hand across his neck as he stepped out of the way of his exiting classmates.

"You don't have to stay after, I would just appreciate it if your phone would remain in your pocket during class lectures." She said primly and the heat of embarrassment crept up his face.

Oh God, he was making this into a disaster now.

"Of course, ma'am," he said awkwardly, keeping his voice steady as he cursed himself for not remembering her name. It had been right at the top of the syllabus and she'd certainly said it when she introduced herself.

"Please, I'd prefer Miss Schuwieler, or Professor, Mr. Blake." She corrected with an almost apologetic expression.

"Sorry, Mrs. Schuwieler. Call me Bellamy, then,"

"Alright," she agreed. "Have a good rest of her day then, Bellamy."

"You too! And it won't happen again. My phone, I mean. I just have a friend who's… well- doesn't matter."

Professor Schuwieler nodded and turned towards her desk situated beside the door. Bellamy took his leave, feeling utterly embarrassed, which was a new feeling for him. He felt like Clarke, with how much he was apologizing to the professor, and the smile that brought to his face was enough to tamp down the heat brewing under his shirt collar.

He followed the thinning stream of students down the wide hallway and into the common area of the building. People milled about but Bellamy didn't recognize anyone, so he pushed through the double doors and out into the warm afternoon.

He squinted into the sun for a moment before starting down the sidewalk back towards Frontier Hall. He walked quickly, enjoying the warm air, knowing it wouldn't stick around too much longer. Fall in Minnesota was beautiful, but short.

"I thought you'd gotten lost on the walk back," Clarke greeted Bellamy when he stepped out of the elevator. She was sitting on the floor beside his door, knees pulled up to her chin.

"You wish," He said as he pulled his key from his pocket and offered his other hand to help Clarke up from the floor. She accepted and he easily pulled her to her feet.

"I don't wish that. Then I wouldn't get to make my cake."

"Could've just broken down the door," Bellamy joked.

"That was my other option," Clarke replied, slipping around Bellamy and entering the room first. The shade was drawn and the room was dim, the only light squeaking in around the edges of the blinds.

"Eager, huh?"

"Yes, This'll take me like, four hours to make the whole thing." Clarke started to rustle through the Target bags on the spare desk.

"Four?" Bellamy asked incredulously.

"Uh huh," she said, standing up. Her hair was tied back into a messy bundle resting on the nape of her neck. "You should let some light in here or you'll grow mold."

"Yes sir," Bellamy saluted her and Clarke hummed in amusement.

"Mold spores will give you all kinds of respiratory problems."

"Well, don't want that, now do we?" Bellamy swept open the blind in a grand gesture and the room was flooded with golden light. Heat trapped between the shade and the glass cascaded over the sill onto Bellamy's arm, making the hairs prickle.

"Much better," Clarke said, laughing and squinting into the brightness. She gathered her bag of ingredients and seemed surprised when Bellamy followed her out of the room. He gave pause for a moment. Had she forgotten he'd offered to join her, or did she not want him to come?

Clarke looked back at him, stradling the doorway. Her face was so sweet, her eyes bright.

"C'mon then. I suppose I'll need someone to taste test."

"I'm sure I'll ace it."

"Huh?"

"The test. The taste - test. I'll score 100 percent. On eating"

"Pfft. The joke isn't funny if you have to explain it!" Clarke complained.

"You're the one who didn't get it!"

"I did too,"

"It's alright. My humor is just too sophisticated for normal people," Bellamy teased.

"O-kay!" Clarke scoffed and started down the stairs, amused. Bellamy followed her with high spirits. Something about making Clarke laugh filled him with an unmatched joy.

Bellamy spent the next couple of hours perched on the edge of the counter in the dorm's communal kitchen, watching Clarke bake. She moved around the kitchen with a confident ease, measuring ingredients and mixing things together. She knew what she was doing and it was obvious that baking was something she enjoyed. Bellamy was happy to just be there, but it was an added bonus when Clarke handed him a spatula or bowl to lick.

"I think they are done," Clarke was looking thoughtfully into the oven. She had an adorable thinking face...

"Hmm," Bellamy knew not a thing about cakes and had no advice for her.

"See? You can see them pulling away from the sides of the pan. I'd better get them out."

As Clarke slid on an oven mitt, her phone started buzzing on the counter.

"Can you see who it is?" Clarke asked, reaching into the oven.

"Sure," Bellamy reached over her and picked up her phone. "It's Raven."

"Oh, can you answer it?" She asked, lifting up one of the cake pans.

"Sure." Bellamy said again, sliding the green phone icon across the screen and accepting the call.

"Hello?"

"Clarke? Who is this?" Raven's voice sounded on the other end.

"It's Bellamy," He responded, wondering what Raven's reaction would be to hearing him answering Clarke's phone. He thought back to how surprised she had looked he brought Clarke home last night.

"Hmm. It would be you." She sounded skeptical. "Is Clarke alright? Where is she?"

"She's right here, although a little preoccupied at the moment," Bellamy said, watching Clarke pull the second pan from the oven.

"Doing what?" Raven asked.

Bellamy knew the cake was supposed to be a secret, so he said the first thing that popped into his head. "Using the bathroom."

"Bellamy!" Clarke shouted at him.

"What? I heard her! Why are you in the bathroom with her?"

"He's not!" Clarke shouted, standing up from her crouch in front of the oven.

"Well what-" Raven's voice over the phone was cut off as Clarke cried out.

"Shit!" She yelled, stumbling back, clutching her arm to her chest.

"Clarke?" Bellamy said, dropping the phone onto the counter. It clattered loudly on the cracked linoleum. He pushed off the counter and was at her side in one quick motion, the phone call forgotten.

"I'm fine," she bit out. "Just brushed the side of the oven with my arm."

"Ouch. Better run it under cold water," he said, looking with concern at the growing red blister on Clarke's forearm as he guided her towards the sink. He turned the faucet on cold and eased Clarke's arm under the stream of water. She hissed air through her teeth as the blister was drowned.

"There. That should help it." Bellamy realized how close he was standing to Clarke, pressed against her side, and stepped back, wiping his palms on his shorts.

"Thanks," Clarke murmured, looking back at Bellamy over her shoulder. Her eyes were… tender. Maybe they were welled with tears of pain, but Bellamy thought he saw something more.

"Hello? Clarke? Bellamy?" The muffled vibrations of Raven's voice still came through the discarded phone.

"Ope," Bellamy picked it up and held it to his ear. "Sorry about that Raven. What were you saying?"

"Bellamy? What the hell just happened? Are you still in the bathroom?"

"No…" Bellamy said, floundering for what to say. Clarke reached out with her uninjured arm and gestured for the phone. Bellamy readily handed it over.

"Hi Raven. Sorry about that. What's up?" Clarke watched the water stream over her arm as she talked. Bellamy couldn't hear Raven's words over the sound of the running faucet and Clarke's side of the conversation didn't make much sense.

He watched as her cheeks flushed red, then went ashen a few moments later.

"Okay. See you later," Clarke hung up the phone and placed it gingerly on the counter.

Bellamy watched her for a moment, until it became apparent that she was not going to be the first one to speak.

"What did Raven want?" he asked quietly.

"Oh, just to say she wasn't going to be around tonight," Clarke said absently. Bellamy knew where this was headed and he didn't want to make Clarke say it, so he did.

"Because she's going to… his place."

Clarke only nodded.

"I see. At least he isn't coming here," he offered. Clarke sniffed.

"I could keep an eye on Raven if he was, to make sure she was alright."

"You wouldn't want to be there if he was, though. "

"True. But I'd at least be nearby. She could yell or- or-"

"Shh, Clarke, Raven's alright. I doubt she would keep seeing him if he was hurting her."

"That doesn't mean he won't start!" Clarke said, looking up from the sink for the first time, her eyes wide and watery.

Bellamy didn't have a response. Instead he fetched the towel from the other side of the sink and shut off the faucet. Clarke let him dry off her arm.

"How does it feel?" Bellamy asked. The burn didn't look too bad, but in his opinion, burns were the worst injury out there. They didn't bleed or anything, but they were always present and ached and stung in the worst way. And they left horrible scars. In a twisted sort of way, Bellamy could see Clarke's attack paralleled by a burn across her whole being; ever present and scarring.

"Fine," Clarke said absently. "It feels fine. I'll be fine."

Bellamy frowned. He didn't like when this happened to Clarke. Her eyes got all glassy and her face froze. He knew she was thinking about that night, and what Finn had done to her…

He clenched his jaw in frustration. Any time he thought about that- that- animal, his blood boiled. Bellamy knew that if he ever saw Finn again, he would beat the living daylights out of him. He would do it happily.

"Do you think I should tell Raven?" Clarke looked up at Bellamy, question and concern mixing on her face, making her brow knit and faint lines appear beside her eyes.

Bellamy honestly didn't know. "I think you should do what you think is right," he finally said.

"That's some answer," Clarke mumbled without malice. She clearly hadn't expected him to have a strong opinion on the topic.

"If nothing seems… off with Raven, or Finn doesn't come around," Bellamy watched Clarke flinch when he said Finn's name. "You might want to leave it alone. If that's what you want."

"He just gets off scott free," Clarke muttered darkly.

"No! That's not what I meant. If you want my actual opinion, I think you should go to the police. I'd testify for you, if that's how they'd do it, I don't know. He should be punished to the highest extent of the law. He should go to jail, hopefully forever. And then he can rot in Hell after that."

Bellamy's fists were clenched. Clarke looked surprised at his passionate statement; her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed. Bellamy felt awkward for a moment, but was careful not to let it show. He had said what he truly felt, so why be embarrassed?

"That's…" Clarke started, her gaze trailing off with her words. Bellamy didn't say anything, but again he was fighting that urge to reach out and hug Clarke to him. He seemed to feel it every time he was with her. Was it pity or… something more?

Clarke cleared her throat and pushed away from the sink, clearly moving on from the topic.

"I'd better get going on this frosting if we want this cake to be done any time soon."

"Yeah. I need something else to sample. My blood sugar is getting dangerously low," Bellamy said lightly as Clarke stretched up on her toes to reach into a cupboard for a bowl.

She smiled softly as she returned to a flatfooted posture. "But Bellamy," she turned to him. "It's nice to know someone's on my side."

"Where else would I be?" Bellamy said warmly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much to say today, but thanks for reading, and I would love to know your thoughts. :)
> 
> -Birch66724


	17. Chapter 17

"Honestly, the best part about a German Chocolate cake is that you don't have to frost the sides," Clarke said, dolloping a spatculaful of frosting atop the cake.

"That's something. It looks sort of… rustic. I think that's the word they used," Bellamy said. He was standing beside Clarke at the counter. He had sensed her mood change after Raven's phone call and had stuck close to her side, as if right there on the counter wasn't near enough. Clarke didn't mind though. His presence was reassuring.

"Rustic? Where'd you hear that?" Clarke asked, amused.

She watched Bellamy shrug. "My mom used to like to watch those baking shows. It was one of the channels you got without paying for cable."

"Oh," Clarke replied, glancing back down at her cake. That was sort of a loaded statement and she wasn't sure what to reply.

Bellamy chuckled darkly. "Yeah. Those were the days,"

"Do you miss you mom?" Clarke asked, focusing intently on scraping the last of the frosting from the bowl.

Bellamy took a moment to respond. Clarke listened to his shorts rustle as he shifted his weight to his other foot.

"Of course. She's my mother."

"But…?" Clarke asked, as Bellamy's tone had left the statement unfinished.

"But, she really wasn't a mom for us. I mean, in the literal sense, sure, she birthed us, but she was never really there for us. Alcohol and strange men are more alluring than a couple of crying kids."

"I'm sorry," Clarke said. Bellamy's voice was terribly resigned, and his feeble attempt at humor made his words all the more disheartening. This was a truth he had long since accepted.

"S'not your fault."

"I know, but it makes me feel guilty." Clarke put down the bowl and turned to face Bellamy, leaning against the edge of the counter.

"How?" His face was questioning.

"Like, I know my mom loves me, and she was always there for me, even though I was closer with my dad. And I… I don't even talk to her. I've called her once since I moved out here." Clarke felt her throat start to close up and she couldn't maintain eye contact with Bellamy any longer.

"Oh, Clarke. You can't feel guilty about that." She didn't look up. "Hey, Princess. You've got a lot on your plate right now," Bellamy said, ducking his head down to coax Clarke. Her gaze flickered up and Bellamy was smiling sweetly. He was too good to her… And all she was doing was baking him a lousy cake.

"Fine."

Bellamy chuckled.

"Thank you for everything." Clarke turned and picked up the completed cake, holding it out to him.

"Aww, all for me? Thank you!" Bellamy placed a hand to his chest in feign surprise.

"Of course! Just take out a piece for Raven and Harper and one for Octavia, too. And you can't have it until after I take it upstairs and also give it to them."

"Hmm, this sounds rigged somehow."

"It's not. Just don't think about it too hard."

"Whatever you say!"

"Oh, whatever I say, huh?" Clarke flashed Bellamy a look and he visibly swallowed. Clarke pretended she didn't notice and continued on with their playful conversation.

"What if I said, 'Bellamy, would you be a dear and wash up all these dishes?'?"

"If you said that, I'd have to say, 'Of course, since you have so generously baked a whole cake just for me, the least I could do is wash up a few pans.'" Bellamy was grinning as he moved to the sink and started running the water.

"Thanks," Clarke said, dropping the funny tone she had been talking in and came to Bellamy's side to help.

"You'll wear out that word if you keep saying it so much, Clarke," he scolded, turning a frown on her.

"Sorry, -"

"That one too!"

"I- Bellamy!" He started laughing at her open-mouthed expression.

"Brat," Clarke smacked him on the shoulder and pushed dishes into the sudsy basin.

"Just making a point," Bellamy's brown eyes twinkled mischievously, clearly he was enjoying chastising Clarke.

"Well, I hear you, loud and clear."

"Good!" he chirped.

"But Bellamy," Clarke started seriously. "I can't say thank you enough. I honestly don't- I don't know where I'd be without you. Literally. You got me out of there and I- Well, you saved my life. How can I say thank you too many times?"

Clarke's words quickly sobered Bellamy.

"I don't want you to feel like you're in my debt. You're not. At all. I did the right thing, the same thing that anyone, hopefully, would have done. And I got your friendship out of it, so that is more than thanks enough."

Bellamy gazed at Clarke and she felt her throat close up again. She looked back into his sincere face and couldn't speak. She was overflowing with emotion and gratitude. The only thing she could do was wrap her arms around Bellamy, hoping she could convey herself without talking, as she feared she would be unable to without tearing up.

She closed the distance between them and looped her arms around Bellamy's chest. She pressed the side of her face into his t-shirt and relaxed into Bellamy as he enveloped her in his strong arms. It was the safest, most comfortable Clarke had been in a week. She took a deep breath and her nose filled with the warm ethereal scent of Bellamy. As Clarke exhaled, Bellamy tightened his hug in the space vacated.

"And Princess?"

"Yeah?"

"You're welcome."

Clarke smiled and pulled back. Bellamy was still looking at her, and Clarke could feel her cheeks start to flush. She turned away so he wouldn't see, embarrassed.

"Maybe if we hurry we can catch Raven before she leaves," Clarke suggested and started fishing around in the sink for the washrag.

Bellamy agreed. "Yeah," Clarke washed up the bowl and handed it to Bellamy to dry. They cleaned up the kitchenette without speaking. Clarke's thoughts were swirling around in her head like a blizzard, so it suited her just fine. She couldn't deny the way she felt when Bellamy held her, but it was not what she needed right now. Just because Bellamy was being nice to her, helping her out, did not mean she had to go and develop a crush on him. She could feel her face flush again…

"Woah, watch that hot water!" Bellamy warned, swinging the faucet away from Clarke's arm, saving her the discomfort of heat in her fresh burn.

"Oh!" Clarke pulled her arm back. She hadn't been paying attention to what she was doing. Again. "Tha-"

"Uh! Nope!" Bellamy interrupted her thanks. Clarke turned indignantly towards him.

"Bellamy! How can I-"

"Just don't say it." He stuck his nose in the air with a smug expression.

Clarke flicked the water from her hands at him. It freckled his grey t-shirt as he pretended to be appalled.

"How dare you!" He said in a low tone, turning a glare on Clarke. "I wash dishes for you, and this is the thanks I get?"

"You wouldn't let me say it out loud, so yes," Clarke smarted.

Bellamy gave pause and his face relaxed. "Fair enough."

"Let's get going upstairs, what time is it anyway?" Clarke picked up the cake which was stacked on a paper plate for lack of actual dishes.

"Uh, like eight o'clock I think," Bellamy said as he led the way down the hall.

"Eight? When did it get so late?" Clarke was surprised. They had been down in the basement for nearly four hours! She knew the cake took a long time to bake and cool and frost, but it hardly felt like any time had passed.

"Time flies when you're having fun, I guess," Bellamy said easily, turning over his shoulder as they reached the end of the hallway. "Want to take the elevator? Or we can go stairs, up to you."

Clarke smiled at his consideration. "Better do the elevator. I don't want to drop the cake,"

"Gotcha." He punched the up key with a finger.

"It's okay when you're with me," Clarke said before she thought about it. Bellamy turned to her.

"Really? That makes me feel good," he said.

"Y-yeah. Or anyone, I mean, I can do it, do the elevator, if I'm with someone. Like Raven or Harper...or..."

Bellamy gave a half chuckle at Clarke's rushed clarification. The doors opened to an empty elevator and they got inside. Clarke was slightly embarrassed about what she said but was trying not to let it show. She didn't say anything until they were standing in front of her dorm door.

"I hope Raven is still here."

"Me too. And she'd better be here if she wants any of this cake or I'll eat it all," Bellamy said.

"You haven't even tried it yet! What if you hate it?" Clarke exclaimed, nodding for him to open the door.

"Impossible," he said. "You made it." He grinned cheekily and swung open the door. Clarke rolled her eyes.

"Who is that?" Raven's voice came from around the corner. "Oh, Bellamy! Is Clarke with you?" She asked, sounding somewhat skeptical.

"Yeah, she's uh, just coming up the stairs," Bellamy pretended to look down the hallway, winking at Clarke. "Where's my sister and Harper?"

"In their dorm…?"

"Good," Bellamy let himself into the bathroom and knocked on the door to the adjoining dorm. "Octavia?"

"Bellamy? What are you doing here?" Clarke couldn't see Raven, but could picture her; drawn brows and a slight frown, one hand on her hip. Clarke remained in the hall, trying to keep her surprise a surprise until all three girls were in the room.

Bellamy didn't respond to Raven, or to Octavia when she burst through the door, starting to get angry at Bellamy's presence. Harper trailed Octavia into the room, and Clarke stepped around the corner, extending the cake to her friends.

"Surprise!" Clarke yelled at the same time as Bellamy.

"What?" Harper started to laugh, while Raven looked confused and Octavia continued to glare at her brother.

"Here," Clarke set the cake down on her desk. "I baked you guys a cake, to say thank you for taking care of me when I was sick. It's German Chocolate." Clarke stepped back and smiled at her friends.

"Oh, Clarke! It looks fabulous! But you didn't have to do that!" Harper cooed.

"Yeah, you did. You vomited in my hairbrush," Octavia said sarcastically.

"I have something for you, Octavia." Clarke said, riffling through the last Target bag of things and producing the new brush.

"Oh yes," Octavia readily accepted the gift. "All is forgiven now." She started running the bristles through her night-dark hair, then added critically, "But why is Bellamy here?"

"He helped too," Clarke said, glancing back at Bellamy, who was leaning casually against the wall.

"Oh yeah. He did something useful for once," Octavia said curtly. Clarke wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic or not, but decided not to dwell on it. If only Octavia knew everything Bellamy had done for her this past week…

"I'm glad you're still here, Raven. I wanted to catch you before you left." Clarke moved on.

"Yeah, change of plans," she scratched her brow. "I'm staying in tonight. I should've texted you," Raven said dully.

"Oh," Clarke said, hiding her pleased feeling at this news. "It's alright. We both know I'm no good at telling you where I am most of the time."

Bellamy scoffed from behind them, attracting a suspicious glare from Octavia.

"What?"

"Nothin'," Bellamy said easily, taking the bag from Clarke and setting paper plates on the desk beside the cake.

"O-kay," Clarke said, in what she hoped wasn't too obvious an attempt to move on from Octavia's sharp words towards her brother. "Do you have the knife, Bellamy?"

"Sure thing, Pr-Clarke." Bellamy fumbled over her name. Oh no. Clarke took the knife from Bellamy without turning around, feeling her heartbeat quicken. He had almost called her Princess in front of everyone. Clarke couldn't put a finger on why exactly that would be a terrible thing, but with Raven already harboring her suspicions about Bellamy and Clarke's 'friendship'...

Clarke served up five slices of cake in silence, aware of eyes on her back.

"Here you go, Rav." Clarke smiled at her friend and handed her a plate, bowing in the middle under the weight of the dense cake.

"Thank you," Raven drawled, her eyes sparkling as she shot a glance at Bellamy. "Now, did he help make the cake, too?"

"Uh, yeah," Bellamy cleared his throat and said. "I ran into Clarke and-"

"No, you were letting me hide the ingredients in your room, because you ran into me yesterday, in the elevator, remember? And you helped me carry my bags?" Clarke looked intently at Bellamy and he nodded along to her story.

"Yes, yes. Yesterday. Then you had to come get the stuff, and I just had nothing better to do, so I came downstairs with you, and now we're here."

"Exactly!" Clarke said, turning away from Bellamy to hand out the rest of the cake. She realized that neither she nor Bellamy had looked away from each other during the whole of their explanation. Looking at Harper's expression as she handed her a plate, Clarke was sure the only thing they had done was make their story seem even more fabricated.

"Oh my God, we did a good job, I'd say," Bellamy interrupted the tense quiet. He'd snuck the cake from the desk without Clarke noticing and shovelled a large bite into his mouth.

"Yeah. This is delicious," Raven agreed. "You two make a pretty good team, I'd say."

"Yeah, we do," Bellamy said brightly, whether trying to divert attention away from Raven's insinuations or simply agree with her, Clarke was unsure. The only thing she did know was that this situation had turned far more awkward than she'd ever expected. And that Octavia was incredibly displeased.

"I've got a lot of work to do. Thanks for the brush, Clarke," She turned and walked back to her dorm through the bathroom.

"You didn't take your cake!" Harper called after her, trailing off as the door shut firmly. Clarke felt her stomach twist.

"I'm sorry. She's temperamental," Bellamy said. "Always has been."

Clarke wasn't sure who Bellamy was talking to, but no one replied.

"No matter," Harper said. "I'll just bring her one when I go back over."

"Good idea. Let's sit down then,"

Bellamy flopped down in Clarke's desk chair, and she didn't know whether she felt relieved or disappointed he didn't sit beside her on the bed. She settled on the former as she watched Raven give Bellamy an eye.

Clarke took a bite of her cake and tried not to choke on it when Harper asked;

"So, what's with your change of plans, Raven? Is everything alright with Finn?"

Clarke kept her eyes on her plate and tried to slow her heart as it started to thump in her chest.

"Oh, I don't know. He's been a pain in the ass lately," Raven said dismissively.

"I'm sorry to hear. Finn seemed so nice when I met him on, what day was that? The day we went to the party. Was it Saturday?" Harper mused, unaware of the effect her words were having on Clarke, who could hardly breath.

Saturday.

The party.

Finn.

Her skin felt hot, her throat too small for air for the air to make it to her lungs, much less swallow the mouthful of cake.

"You know what? It's been ever since that party!" Raven exclaimed. "I don't even remember what happened, but something must've. I think I passed out."

"Yeah, you did," Harper giggled at the memory.

"You think maybe I said something? Or did something I didn't mean to? I was so out of it," Raven groaned.

Clarke was frozen. She prayed that neither of the girls looked at her face. She knew she was as white as a sheet, having felt all the blood drain from her face at the start of this conversation.

"I don't know. What could you have even said, like, another boy's name?" Harper suggested.

"Ugh. I haven't talked to another boy like that for years," Raven groaned. "I think he's just being an idiot."

"Yeah, boys'll do that," Bellamy jumped into the conversation with the loud statement. Clarke knew he was trying to help, but he clearly wasn't sure how.

"You know, one time, I was talking to this girl, and then I didn't want to talk to her anymore, so I uh, I just stopped responding when she would text or call me. Just because I could."

"Kind of a dick move, Blake," Raven said, frowning at him.

"Yeah, but I guess it's just the way guys are sometimes," Bellamy added. Clarke heard the chair squeak as he shifted his weight.

Harper cleared her throat and said, "Well, thanks for the cake, Clarke. It was fantastic."

Clarke managed to look up and give her a smile. Her throat still felt too tight for words.

"I'd better get back to work. And I'll bring this to Octavia," Harper retreated, extra slice in hand..

"Thanks Harper. Tell O I'll talk to her later," Bellamy called after her. "Clarke, what should we do with the rest of this cake?"

Clarke looked up to meet his gentle gaze. She still feared her eyes would well over if she tried to talk. Luckily, Bellamy picked up the slack.

"I was thinking, as much as I hate them, we could offer a piece to Jasper and Monty, just so it doesn't go to waste. It is a big cake."

Clarke nodded and stood.

"Mind if I keep another piece? For later?" Raven asked.

"No, go for it." Bellamy said.

"Thanks. Eating always helps you get through boy troubles, doesn't it Clarke?"

"Y-yeah," Clarke managed, only because her back was to her roommate.

"Let's take this downstairs quick." Bellamy scooped up the cake and nodded Clarke towards the door. "Nice seeing you again, Raven," He said over his shoulder.

"You too, Blake. I'm sure I'll see you around here more. And Clarke, let me know if you're going to be held up." Clarke could hear the teasing in Raven's voice and flipped her off over the shoulder as she left. Even if Raven made her wholey uncomfortable every time she spoke of Finn, she was still a good friend, ever eager to tease. And it wasn't as if she was wrenching Clarke apart on purpose.

"Thanks," Clarke breathed as soon as Bellamy had shut them out of the room.

"Of course, Princess," he said breezily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter!
> 
> How's is everyone doing today? 
> 
> Thanks for reading,
> 
> -Birch66724


	18. Chapter 18

"Yep, text you later," Bellamy said, watching Clarke walk away. She'd rolled her eyes as she insisted she didn't need an escort back to her room.

"Damn, you've got it bad," Jasper said with a smirk.

"Shut up, Jasper," Bellamy muttered, shutting the door. His two roommates were sitting on the spare mattress, eating their cake.

"Nothin' to be ashamed of. Everyone needs a little college romance." Jasper wiggled his brows, and despite himself, Bellamy felt his heart tick a bit faster.

"It's not like that," He said firmly, sweeping cake crumbs from his desk into the trash bin.

"Oh, more like a friends with benefits type of thing?" Jasper pressed.

"No!" Bellamy snapped, fixing him with a glare.

"O-kay pal," Jasper leaned back into the wall. "If I were you though, I'd snatch her up. This cake is the bomb."

Monty snorted at that and then looked peevishly at Bellamy, conveying a silent apology for friend's directness.

"What about you two then? Where's your college romance?" Bellamy challenged.

"Oh, sorry Bellamy, I'm a taken man."

"Yeah? Who?"

"Her name's Maya. She's back at home, though."

"So, it's not a college romance, then?" Jasper frowned.

"It will be. Next year, once she comes to college. She's still a senior in highschool," he said.

"Ohhh," Bellamy flopped down on his bed. "I see."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jasper challenged. Bellamy propped up on an elbow. He hadn't expected the boy with the chemistry goggles constantly glued to his forehead to take such a stance over his girlfriend. Although he knew he shouldn't, Bellamy could'nt help but give him a little grief, after everything Jasper put him through on a nightly basis.

"I dunno. Just, you, being here, and this Maya being, where are you from again?" Bellamy knew the answer to the question, but he asked it anyway, trying to get a rise from the boy. It worked.

"LaCrosse, Wisconsin," Jasper said harshly.

"Ohh, yeah! What's that, like three hours away?"

"Two hours and forty five minutes, if you go 70 on the interstate."

"Okay. But still, quite a ways. How often can you guys see each other? Seems like one of you might get a little lonely, you know-"

"If you're suggesting that I would cheat on my girlfriend-"

Bellamy interrupted him. "No! I would never! It was just a thought."

"Hmpf." Jasper made a displeased noise.

"But you know, if Maya ever does get a little lonely, feel free to give her my phone number." It was Bellamy's turn to smirk at Jasper, who by this point had caught on that Bellamy was only pulling his leg.

"Oh, go off yourself Bellamy," Jasper jeered, struggling to maintain his harsh tone.

"I'll consider it." Bellamy yawned through the words, laying back down.

"Okay, let me know what you decide. I've got work to do." Jasper stood and walked out of the room without another word.

Monty stood, seeming as if to follow his friend, but paused at the door, glancing back to Bellamy.

"Hey, um Bellamy?" he asked.

"Yeah?"

"Your sister, and uh, do you know what her roommate's name is?" Although Monty's olive skin hid the blush in his cheeks, his fidgeting hands gave away his embarrassment at asking the question.

Bellamy smiled at the boy. "Harper. I can get her phone number for you, if you want?"

"Oh! Uh, I would, but don't you think that'd be a little weird? Wouldn't she wonder where I'd gotten it from? What if that made her think I was some kind of stalker or something?"

"You've got a point," Bellamy agreed. "But yeah, Harper. She's a real nice girl. Perfect for your college romance." Bellamy scoffed at the idea.

"Harper," Monty repeated. "Thanks Bellamy. And tell Clarke thanks again for the cake!" He said in a rush, shutting himself into the bathroom.

" 'Course." Bellamy yawned again. Too many late nights and long days were catching up with him as he neared the end of the week.

There was only one more thing he needed to do before turning in early for the night: talk to Octavia. There was something going on with her, something that went beyond her typical stubbornness.

Bellamy didn't want to go back upstairs and knock on her door. Harper, Clarke and Raven were all bound to be right there, chatting as girls were prone to do. That also left out calling her on the phone too.

So, there was only one other option. He sent her a quick text and hoped she would respond in a civil manner.

B: Want to come down to my room so we can catch up?

It took a few moments before she replied.

O: Sure thing Dad. See you in 10.

Bellamy groaned. She wasn't going to drop her position that Bellamy was far too involved in her life anytime soon.

It was seventeen minutes before she showed up, and Bellamy was still laying on his bed, watching an ESPN countdown on his phone when she let herself in.

"What'cha want, Bell?"

"Hey. I just wanted to talk to you." He sat up as Octavia leaned against the wall right inside the door.

"Well, I wanted to talk to you, too." Bellamy nodded for her to continue. She took a deep breath and began, pressing her fingertips together in front of her chest.

"First of all, I just want to have an adult conversation with you," she began.

"I would like nothing better," Bellamy said smoothly, recognising the irony of those words coming out of Octavia's mouth.

"I don't want you to treat me like your daughter, or someone that you need to protect. I am an adult. I can take care of myself. I go to school, and I got a job now, so I don't need any more of that state pension money we got from mom. I opened my own bank account now. I want to be free to make my own decisions and I would appreciate it if you stayed out of my business from now on." She tipped her nose in the air, looking satisfied at the delivery of her obviously pre prepared speech.

Bellamy stared at his little sister for a moment. He knew she craved nothing more than independence. She had from a young age, but until now, she wasn't capable of surviving without guidance.

She still isn't. Bellamy grappled with the voice inside his own head. Octavia was still his little sister. She would always be, and he would always be her older brother, her protector. Could he really just- let her go? Relinquish his position in her life, just like that?

"Bellamy?" She interrupted his thoughts, leaning forwards with a slight frown on her lips.

"Uh, yeah." He said, trying to keep his face free from his conflicting emotions.

"So, you're okay with that, then?" She stood straighter, the tone of her voice edging on disbelief.

"I mean, no," he said honestly. Octavia's face started to darken. "But, I realize how I might be a little too overprotective at times. I suppose…"

"You suppose…?" she prodded.

Bellamy was torn. Was this what it was like to be a parent? He was only five years older than Octavia, but still…

"I suppose I ought to let you go your separate way," Bellamy said, watching as Octavia's face brightened. "But I will always be your big brother."

"Of course, you would never let me forget it!" She said, throwing her arms around Bellamy's neck, giving him the first genuine hug in months. Bellamy couldn't even remember the last time Octavia had willingly embraced him.

As she pulled away, Bellamy smiled a little bit and joked, "My little girl, all grown up." Octavia wrinkled her nose at that, but it didn't dampen her spirit.

"Okay, now that we got that settled, you can let Clarke know she doesn't have to keep making excuses for you to follow her upstairs."

Bellamy felt his stomach do a little drop. "I uh, yeah. I guess I can." He scratched the back of his neck.

"So you admit to using her!" Octavia cried, pointing a finger at him. The tone of her voice was accusatory, but she was still smiling.

"Um, no," Bellamy said slowly. "Some of the times we really did just bump into each other." He thought that would be a safe answer. He didn't know what Clarke had told Octavia.

"Hmm," Octavia said, sitting on the edge of the desk. Her phone chimed in her back pocket. She pulled it out and smiled at something she read.

"Who's that from?" Bellamy asked.

"None of your business," She said, with just a touch of her usual snippiness.

"Okay, then," Bellamy said, forcing the words out, trying to comply with Octavia's request.

"Wow, that's a first!" She praised him, setting her phone down. "I think this is going to be good, for the both of us. Now that you won't spend all of your time helicopter-parenting me, you could accomplish so much more."

Bellamy chuckled. "I didn't before?"

"No," she clarified, "But Bell, we both know you never really had a social life. You were either at school or working or minding after me or mom. But now, you only have school, and just a little bit of mom, so you could go join a club! They have some really good intramural sports. I think you have to try out, but I know you could get on a have dodgeball! You loved dodgeball in high school!"

Bellamy rolled his eyes. He hadn't played dodgeball in probably eight years.

"I'm serious! You should look into it. Some of them have tryouts this weekend."

"We'll see," Bellamy said.

"Okay. Let me know then. Maybe we could come watch you tryout."

"We?"

"Yeah- me and uh, Harper." Octavia looked guilty. Bellamy frowned at her, but she turned and grabbed her phone off the desk and made for the door. As much as Bellamy wanted to demand she explain herself, he reminded himself for the second time in the past minute that she should be able to live her own life. It was time.

"Okay, goodnight Bell!" Octavia chirped, slipping out the door. Bellamy looked at the closed door with a strange mixture of apprehension and relief. The truth was, Bellamy hadn't been nearly as attentive to Octavia as usual this past week, preoccupied with Clarke as he was. It gave him a bit of hope that she had gone disaster free for a week without his constant guidance.

Except for the party.

That could have been the biggest disaster of her life. Instead, it was Clarke who received the short end of the stick on that one. It was a sick thought that crept into Bellamy's head, that he would rather it have been Clarke than Octavia, and the second he thought it, he physically recoiled. It was an absolutely wretched thing to think. Who knew how different the situation could be, but Bellamy was committed to helping Clarke in whatever way he could.

He smiled softly as he mused that Clarke had filled in the space that Octavia had vacated. Clarke needed him now. At least, Bellamy hoped she did. If there was one thing Bellamy realized about himself, it was that he worked better when he had someone else to look after and take care of.

The main difference between Clarke and Octavia was that Bellamy didn't feel like a parent towards Clarke, or even like an older brother. He felt like her confidant, her protector, her friend. And, growing in the back of Bellamy's mind, were some feelings that would definitely not be conducive with being her brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love dodgeball. ;) Should be fun...!
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> -Birch66724


	19. Chapter 19

"Wait, where are you going, Octavia?" Harper asked.

"Out," Octavia answered lightly, leaning forward in the bathroom mirror until her forehead practically touched the glass.

Harper, clearly not satisfied with that answer, asked again. "Where are you going, Octavia? Someone ought to know where you are, just in case."

Octavia gave an exaggerated groan and turned around. "Hodge's Bend."

"Where's that?"

"It's on University Ave. Look, Harper, I'm not going to get wasted, I'm meeting a friend."

Clarke was a quiet observer of her roommates' conversation, sitting on her bed with her Human Physiology textbook open in her lap, skimming over the first section.

"Well, just, be careful," Harper finally said.

"Of course, Mom," Octavia drawled. "I'm starting to think Bellamy put you up to this interrogation."

"He did not! I'm just concerned, is all," Harper protested.

"Okay." Octavia's voice still held an air or skepticism. "I'll text you when I'm on the way home."

"Thank you."

"G'night Clarke, Raven." Octavia's hand waved through the bathroom door.

"Have fun," Clarke said. Raven only grunted. Octavia was gone with a firmly closed door and a final well wish from Harper.

The blond girl came into Clarke and Raven's dorm with an exasperated look, sitting down heavily on Clarke's bed. Her hair was loose from its braid, falling around her face, making her look tired.

"I appreciate that you care, even if Octavia doesn't." Clarke smiled kindly at Harper. It was the whole-hearted truth. It warmed Clarke to know that Harper cared deeply enough to be concerned. It may save her someday…

"Thanks, Clarke." Harper rested her head on the wall, shutting her eyes for a moment. Clarke looked back to her reading. Raven was still an immobil lump under her quilt. Clarke was concerned, but she couldn't bring herself to ask what was wrong for fear it would be about Finn. Clarke wasn't sure she could control her facial expression through a conversation of how Finn was being a terrible boyfriend. She darkly hoped they would break up.

A few moments passed before Harper spoke up.

"Who knew college would be so exhausting?"

"I'll say," Clarke agreed. It was 9 PM on Friday night. Clarke had gone to class without incident today, spent her afternoon in the library, then had supper in the dining hall with Harper and Octavia. They were joined by Monty, who seemed to have a keen interest in Harper. Clarke had smiled through the whole meal, asking questions that made Harper and Monty talk to one another, like, 'Where do you want to move after you graduate?' or 'Does anyone want to go play grocery bingo tomorrow night?' They had both readily agreed to the latter question, exchanged phone numbers, and planned to meet up on Saturday in the basement.

Clarke was rather pleased with her matchmaking skills, and the pair of them were adorably shy.

"Raven, can you even breath in there?" Harper asked and the bundle of blankets shifted. Raven's head poked out and her eyes blinked blearily. Her hair was staticy, either stuck to her face or sticking straight out, and her face was red from where it had been pressed into her sweatshirt sleeve.

"Yeah," she mumbled miserably, head head plopping back down.

"Aww, what's the matter?" Harper said softly. Clarke tried to steal herself for the conversation that would follow, but thankfully, Raven didn't seem to want to talk about it.

"I'm fine," she said, emerging like a butterfly from its cocoon.

"Mmm." Harper frowned as she considered Raven, now sitting on the edge of her bed, bare feet skimming the floor.

Clarke took a deep breath and closed her textbook, apparently harder than she intended, garnering the attention of the two girls.

"Sorry," she said, feeling her face flush. "I just- I'm really really tired of digestion and absorption."

Raven wrinkled her nose. "Ew, that does sound terrible."

"Well, want to do something? We could watch a movie, or play a game, or- oh! Clarke I could repaint your nails!" Harper seized Clarke's hand as she reached over her to place the textbook on her desk. "How'd you even manage to get all that polish off in a week?"

Clarke withdrew her hand, looking disdainfully at her chipped nails. She had obsessively scratched all of the pink polish over the past few days. Not only did she hate having painted nails, she disliked the color pink, and they served as a constant reminder to that night.

"I picked at them," she said truthfully. Nothing would be covered up by lying. "I'm not a huge fan of fingernail polish."

"Me neither," Raven agreed. She was bent over her end table, draped in a blanket. Her hair was a mess, more out of her bun than in.

"Really? I mean, I can get why you don't like it, but- I guess it just makes me feel feminine, you know?" Harper prattled as she flexed her hand in front of her, admiring the skillfully painted blue polish.

"Sure. But I don't need to feel pretty when I go to robotics class." Raven said, holding her hands up like claws. "It'd get all chipped on the aluminum alloy gearbox brackets. You really have to get your fingers in there to tighten the KEPS nuts to the gussets."

"I'm not even going to pretend I know what that means," Harper said. They all shared a good, spirit lifting laugh.

"I vote to watch a movie," Raven said, dragging her quilt across the floor and hopping onto Clarke's bed.

"Oh, so we're doing this in my bed?" Clarke said, scooting down to make room for Raven, who sat on her pillow.

"Yep." Raven said, tugging the pillow out from under her and whacking Clarke in the face with it.

"Oo, I have popcorn!" Harper said, sliding off the bed and scampering into her side of the dorm. Clarke leaned over and grabbed her laptop, setting it on the pillow on her lap. Harper returned and the three girls sat shoulder to shoulder on the bed, their feet hanging off the edge.

Clarke pulled up Netflix in her browser, and let Harper scroll through the movies.

"Wait, there is a To All the Boys I've Loved Before 2?" Raven said, pointing to the screen.

"I didn't even know there was a To All the Boys I've Loved Before 1," Clarke said.

"Yeah, you didn't know that?" Harper asked, ignoring Clarke's comment.

Raven shook her head, "I mean, I read the book, but-"

Clarke interrupted her with a surprised look. "Raven Reyes, the mechanical engineering student, reads teen romance novels?"

Raven had the dignity to glance away, and faint blush glowing behind her tanned skin.

"I went through a phase," she mumbled.

Clarke chuckled and Harper joined in. "I didn't see that coming," she agreed.

"Stop bullying me!" Raven cried, holding back her embarrassed laughter and grabbed the computer from Clarke's lap.

"Hey!"

"We're watching it, I don't even care," Raven said, clicking on the movie.

"But I haven't even seen the first one!"

"Too bad." Raven sat back against the wall with a thump.

Harper told Clarke, "You really don't need to watch them in order, they're pretty shallow."

"They are not!" Raven cried indignantly, sitting forward and fixing Harper with a glare.

"Are too. They don't exactly require a lot of brain power to comprehend." Raven glowered and Harper quickly continued. "That's not to say they aren't good in their own right, as a fun, relaxing film."

"Whatever." Raven flopped backwards again. "Gimme some of that popcorn."

"Say please," Harper insisted with a smile.

"Pretty please," Raven replied in a mocking tone and then started giggling, unable to maintain her angry facade. They all laughed again and passed the bag of popcorn back and forth, watching the movie. They chatted over it most of the first half, and even then, Clarke managed to grasp most of the plot.

Clarke was content, snuggled on her bed in between two of her best friends. She was able to drop the weight she was carting around, following last weekend's events, and just be a carefree college freshman, enjoying a night in with her roommates.

Part way through the movie, her phone vibrated with a text. Clarke flipped it up just long enough it was from Bellamy, before turning it face down in her lap. She couldn't exactly reply to him without Harper or Raven overseeing her conversation, sitting as close to her as they were.

Harper had dozed off as soon as their conversation waned, while Raven sat rapt, watching the film intently. Clarke considered turning her phone away to see what Bellamy had to say. She figured he was just checking in, as they hadn't spoken since this morning, but then her mind started drifting towards the what ifs. What if Octavia got into trouble? But why would he text Clarke? What if he needed help with something? What if something was wrong?

Clarke knew none of her thoughts were probable, but she still thought them. She didn't let herself look at her phone though. Not yet. The movie was nearly over and Harper was drooling onto Clarke's quilt.

"The book was way better," Raven declared, slapping shut the computer with a resounding clap that started both Clarke and Harper. They both jumped, with Harper hitting her head on Clarke's elbow.

"The hell-" Harper slurred, rubbing her bruised cranium as she sat up.

"Raven!" Clarke scolded, recovering from her slight shock as she reached out to cradle Harper's head. "So sorry, Harp. Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Harper mumbled, frowning at Raven across the bed.

"Sorry dears," Raven said ruefully, sliding off Clarke's bed. "I'm going to sleep. Thanks for the popcorn, Harper."

"Yeah." Harper still seemed groggy. Clarke leaned back to get a better look at the girl. How hard had she hit her head?

As soon as Harper realized Clarke's critical gaze, she straightened up and stopped rubbing her head. "I'm fine, Dr. Griffin." She smiled and pushed off Clarke to get to her feet.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, just makes my head all foggy if I nap," Harper explained, picking up her phone from where it had fallen to the floor as she disentangled herself from the nest of blankets. "Octavia says, 'I'm here at Hodge's Bend, don't worry mom, my friend will give me a ride home afterwards. See you in the morning.'"

"Hmm." Clarke said and Raven gave a muffled, "Cool."

"I hope she knows that I probably won't sleep until she gets home," Harper muttered, sliding her phone into her pocket.

"She'll be fine," Raven mumbled.

Clarke, on the other hand, was glad for Harper's protectiveness. "It's nice that you care. Everyone needs to have someone looking out for them."

"Thank you Clarke," Harper said, sticking her tongue out at Raven, who didn't see the gesture through her closed eyes.

"Of course. And don't worry, I'll do the same for you, when you go out," Clarke confirmed, standing and sweeping popcorn crumbs from her bed.

Harper scoffed. "I'm not much one for a night at the bar."

"Couldn't've guessed,." Raven chided goodnaturedly.

"Either way, I'll do it," Clarke said, changing Harper's frown at Raven into a warm smile.

"Thanks, Clarke. At least I know I have someone who cares about my wellbeing."

Raven spoke up, "I care, just in my own way."

"Sure, sure," Harper said breezily. "I'm going to get ready for bed."

"Goodnight," Clarke told her as she shut the bathroom door.

Finally, with Harper gone back to her room, and Raven passed out in her bed, Clarke opened Bellamy's message.

B: Do you know where Octavia is? I told her I would leave her alone, but I'm worried. She won't answer me.

B: Also, how was your afternoon/evening? I had chicken in the dining hall but I don't think it was chicken…

Clarke felt Bellamy's concern for his little sister bleeding through the pixelated words on her screen, then his touch of humor brightened things up a shade or two.

C: Sorry it took so long to respond. I was watching a movie with Harp and Rav. Octavia said she was going out with a friend, didn't say who though.

Clarke felt weird as she pressed send on the message, like she was betraying Octavia's trust by telling Bellamy her plans. The feeling had subconsciously prevented her from telling the location of the bar, something Clarke hadn't even realized until she saw the icon of Bellamy typing his response.

B: Oh, okay. Those sound like some code names, What were you really doing, Princess?

C: I'll never tell. But I'll let you know when Octavia gets home, I'm sure she'll wake us all up.

B: Yeah she was never one for subtlety.

C: It's alright, not like I sleep most of the time anyways.

As soon as Clarke sent the message, she regretted it. She knew Bellamy would be quick with a concerned response..

B: Are you still not sleeping? I'm sorry Clarke.

She was right.

C: No, I'm fine. It's been getting a lot better lately actually.

B: You sure? If I found out you lied to get me off your back Princess... There will be unrest in your kingdom.

C: yeah yeah. I'll be sure to call for my knight in shining armour should I need anything.

B: Good. You going to bingo tomorrow? Sounds like it could be fun?

C: I was planning on it. Who doesn't like free food? Plus, someone has to keep an eye on Harper and Monty.

B: Harper and Monty?

C: You don't know about that?

B: Guess not. Monty mentioned something to me the other day, but I didn't think he'd have the balls to actually talk to her.

C: Ye of little faith! So long as there is someone there to keep the conversation moving, they are fine. And so adorable.

B: Adorable, huh?

C: What can I say, I'm a sucker for a cute couple.

B: Clarke Griffin, a real romantic! Never would've guessed it.

C: Shows how much you know!

B: I know a lot of things

C: Yeah?

B: Yep. I even know how to bake a German Chocolate Cake.

C: Got me beat on that front, then, I'm a terrible baker.

B: Oh really? I think Jasper would beg to differ. He devoured the rest of that cake, then proclaimed his love for you.

C: How sweet of him. He seems like a nice boy. Would you mind giving him my number? I've been trying to find a man who would appreciate my gifts and put me, as a woman, in my rightful place; the kitchen.

Clarke swore she heard Bellamy laughing through the floor after that message.

B: I'll let him know.

C: Thanks. Next time, we ought to just do this in person. My fingers are cramping up.

B: Totally agree. See you tomorrow for grocery bingo?

C: You're on. Goodnight, Bellamy.

B: Goodnight, Princess.


	20. Chapter 20

C: She's home. Now go to sleep.

B: Yes ma'am. Thanks Clarke.

Bellamy rolled over in bed after glancing at the time: 2:27 am. He was slightly irritated but more than a little relieved after receiving Clarke's text. She had kept her word and informed him about his sister's whereabouts, but it was unfair of Bellamy to even ask.

My sister, my responsibility. The old motto ran its way through Bellamy's tired brain. He wasn't sure he could back off from Octavia completely like this, she was too- too what? Too impulsive and naive, too stubborn and bold and confident. She was barely 18 and had the whole world at her feet, something Bellamy was sworn to protect for her. He had already seen what one bad night could do to a girl…

"Do you think we should wake him up? He's been sleeping for an awfully long time."

"I don't know… Maybe we should just let him sleep."

"What? Scared he'll be mad at you?"

"Yeah, kinda."

"Okay. Glad I'm not the only one, then."

"But if we don't wake him up, there is no way we'll get to the-"

"Get to the what?" Bellamy said harshly, opening his eyes just in time to see Monty and Jasper scamper backwards, tripping over one another.

"Ah, good morning chief," Jasper said with a little wave. Monty offered a tightlipped smile, his eyes darting away.

"What'cha want?" Bellamy asked as his mouth spread in a wide yawn.

"Uh- just to- check in on you?" Jasper said lightly.

"What?" Bellamy wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. "Is something wrong?"

"Not exactly," Monty said slowly, getting Bellamy's heart jumping in his chest. He flung back his blankets and sat up.

"What's wrong, spit it out!" He growled at Monty, feeling only slightly guilty as the smaller boy flinched away. Was it Octavia? Has something happened? Was Clarke okay?

Monty hesitated only a second before his words spilled from his mouth as a gush of syllables. "Octavia has been telling Harper to text me to tell you that you need to wake up and get ready. And then once Jasper heard about it, he wanted to go too, so now I guess I'm going, but really they just want you to go. And it starts in a half hour."

Bellamy stared at Monty blankly for a second before Jasper clarified.

"Intramural dodgeball tryouts! They start at two."

"Dodgeball? Two? Two AM?" Bellamy's brain was still fuzzy around the edges. It was too early for this.

"Two PM," Monty corrected, looking down at the digital watch on his wrist. "Twenty-eight minutes from now."

Things slid into place in Bellamy's mind. He snatched his phone off the nightstand, startled at the nearly 30 messages he had received since he had fallen asleep. Nearly 11 hours ago.

"Why'd you let me sleep so long?" He said to no one in particular, jumping from his warm bed.

"I didn't know you wanted us to wake you up," Monty said lightly.

"Sorry," Jasper said, stepping back as Bellamy moved through the room, flipping on the light and pulling open the blinds.

"No, I-" Bellamy paused, carding his hand through his curls. He opened his phone. Twenty-four of the messages were from Octavia. They were all from over the past four hours, variations of the same idea that Bellamy needed to wake up, text her back, she was coming with him to his dodgeball tryouts, get ready to leave, why wasn't he up yet?, she was coming down there, et cetera, et cetera.

Bellamy groaned and quickly told her he was up.

The remaining four messages were from Clarke. It made his heart rate spike, seeing the little red 4 beside her name. She had never sent him more than one message at a time. Had she needed something while Bellamy was stupidly sleeping the day away? He slid up on her name and scanned the messages.

C: Of course.

C: Do you always sleep this late?

C: Octavia won't stop pestering about this dodgeball thing. I didn't know you were going out for intramurals!

C: Octavia is coming down there if you don't reply to her in 2 minutes. Fair warning.

Only slightly relieved after reading the last message, timestamped one minute ago, Bellamy typed a quick three word response to Clarke and tossed his phone to his bed.

Monty and Jasper were still standing in his room, watching him with wide eyes. They were both dressed in what Bellamy assumed to be their understanding of athletic clothes. Neither of them appeared to be the type to exercise per say.

"Want to borrow some shorts?" Bellamy asked suggestively, nodding at Jasper's khaki cargos and Monty's navy blue sweatpants. The boys looked down at their pants, then at each other, then at Bellamy in perfect unison. It was almost comical how in sync they were.

"You do. You definitely do," Bellamy said decisively, digging out three pairs of basketball shorts, tossing his only pair of size mediums to Jasper. Monty would have to make do with a large.

Bellamy had no more than changed and given his teeth a quick brush when he heard someone pounding on his dorm room door. He inwardly groaned, but thanked Clarke that he had at least a couple minutes of warning.

"Bellamy? Let me in!" Octavia yelled as Bellamy undid the lock. The door swung open, narrowly missing Bellamy's bare feet, and slammed into the wall.

"Goodmorning, O."

"Morning? It's way past noon!" Octavia frowned at him, then her face turned into a glare as she accused him; "You forgot! You completely forgot! I told you we were going to go to this dodgeball thing, and you forgot."

"Slipped my mind," Bellamy mumbled, noticing for the first time the girls in the hall behind Octavia. The whole crew was there, Clarke smiling at him, Raven looking thoughtfully at something on the floor, and Harper turning to greet Jasper or, mainly, Monty, as they exited their own door.

"Ugh." Octavia made a noise and grabbed Bellamy's arm, dragging him into the hall.

"Wait, let me get my shoes." Bellamy wanted to be irritated at his little sister ordering him around, but with Clarke standing right behind her, his mood brightened considerably.

Seconds later, Bellamy was hopping down the hall, trying to get his second tennis shoe over his heel, following the motley group towards the elevator.

"What are you all doing here?" Bellamy asked, stomping his foot to the floor, settling his shoe into place.

"Are you trying out for the team?" Monty asked, somewhat hopefully.

"Heck no!" Harper was quick to say.

"I wasn't going to miss out on the chance to see some people get hit in the face with balls," Raven joked.

"That's what she said!" Jasper said loudly and Monty snickered. Harper made an appalled face, but her eyes were smiling at the two boys.

"I just had nothing better to do," Clarke said easily. She had found her way to Bellamy's side and stayed there as they all stepped into the elevator.

"And I had to come to make sure you went." Octavia slapped Bellamy on the back and he frowned at her.

"Why do you want me to play dodgeball so bad?"

"Because you love dodgeball!" She said, as if the answer was completely obvious. Bellamy had a suspicious feeling about Octavia's motives, but he tried not to think about it. What would it be anyway? It was hard to think in the crowded elevator anyhow, what with Jasper starting to argue with Raven about RAM on his phone, Monty and Harper talking in hushed tones, and Clarke standing right beside him. He glanced down at her, hoping she was feeling alright in the elevator, surrounded by friends as she was. He wasn't sure, as she only stared straight ahead at the sealed doors, her blond waves covering part of her face.

She was the first to exit the car as it came to a halt on the first floor, everyone else tumbling out behind her.

"You know where we're going, O?" Bellamy asked his sister, who nodded confidently, leading the way outside.

"Recreation center."

"The University Recreation and Wellness Center?" Jasper recited like he was a campus tour guide.

"Yes."

"We only have 20 minutes to get there." Monty said in a tone edging on nervousness.

"Relax. We'll be fine," Octavia said, turning around and walking backwards, drawling her words out at the boy. He looked a bit intimidated and Bellamy was amused. "It's only like, half a mile."

Octavia led the way and they fell into pairs behind her on the sidewalk. Monty and Harper followed right after her, and Bellamy saw that Clarke did have a point. They did look pretty cute, what with Harper giggling and turning her face away as Monty flashed a pleased grin whenever he succeeded in making her laugh. Raven and Jasper were still in a heated conversation about phone storage, so wrapped up in technological terms and acronyms they hardly noticed where they were going.

That left Bellamy and Clarke to bring up the rear of the group. Bellamy turned and looked at Clarke, noticing her soft smile as she watched her friends.

"It's nice for Raven to be able to argue with someone who actually understands what she's talking about," Clarke said, noticing Bellamy's attention on her.

Bellamy chuckled softly. "Good for Jasper, too. I'm sure he hasn't talked to anyone besides Monty since he came to the U of M."

"Hmm. But hey!" Clarke spoke up, whacking Bellamy on the shoulder with the back of her hand, "When were you going to tell me about this whole dodgeball thing?"

Bellamy rubbed his shoulder. "Ouch." Clarke rolled her eyes at him. "To be honest, I didn't even know I was going to go through with this until-" He checked his wrist for a watch that didn't exist. "- nine minutes ago."

"Bellamy!" Clarke giggled. "The way Octavia made it sound, it seemed like you've had your heart set on playing intramural dodgeball since the day you were born."

"I mean, I suppose I have. There's nothing quite like throwing balls. And catching balls. And getting hit with balls... You know, I think I've changed my mind." Bellamy stopped in his tracks.

Clarke laughed, reaching back and grabbing him by the wrist, securly looping her arm through his, as if to keep him right by her side. Bellamy was pleasantly surprised by her action, especially when she didn't drop her arm back to her side, but left it there, loosely clutching his bicep as they continued down the sidewalk. Bellamy marvelled at the fact that this was the first time he remembered Clarke initiating contact between them when she wasn't in a state of distress. Was it that she was recovering from her experience, or that she just felt so at ease with Bellamy she was comfortable doing it?

They didn't speak the rest of the way, but Bellamy didn't mind. The sun was warm on his face and it was catching in Clarke's hair, making it glow like a golden crown around her head. The wispy strands brushed against his arm and neck, teased by the wind. It tickled, but Bellamy didn't want Clarke any farther away. She felt just so right on his arm, walking like they were a couple.

The feeling ended all too soon, with Clarke dropping his arm as they arrived at the front of the complex. It was an impressive building that Bellamy had been to a few times before. He wanted to get back into his workout routine, but things had just been so hectic this first week of school. Besides, the first time he was planning to go, Clarke was baking a cake. The choice between the two activities was nonexistent really.

Raven, ever observant Raven, caught Bellamy's eye as Clarke caught up to her. He knew Clarke's roommate had her suspicions about the pair of them. Bellamy wasn't going to confirm nor deny any questions she might ask. Perhaps it would be a protection to Clarke, if Raven thought they were dating?

She didn't look upset or disapproving. If anything, she looked faintly amused as she gave Bellamy a wink and turned, her long ponytail swishing behind her as she held the door open for Clarke, who was rushing ahead, her attention caught by something.

Bellamy paused a moment as he was apprehensive. Maybe he shouldn't let Raven go on believing something that wasn't true?

"Hurry up Bell!" Octavia jarred him from his musings. "You need to sign in at this table or something."

Bellamy jogged into the building and across the foyer, feeling the rush of air conditioning wash over his body from the large vents above the door.

"This is an awfully big room to be run on a mini-split system," Raven commented, much to Jasper's disagreement. He looked up from the registration table and shot a glare at her.

Bellamy was quick to tune out their second geek argument and focus instead on the clipboard thrust into his hands. He started to fill out the basic information with Octavia hovering at his shoulder. Harper got Jasper back on track with his registration form, chiding Raven for engaging him. Raven smugly grinned and folded her arms over her chest.

A moment after Bellamy handed the completed form back to the guy behind the table, they were approached by a pair of guys.

"Hey, did you guys know you need to have a five person team to get into the gym?" A young man asked, the question clearly directed at Bellamy. Bellamy had noticed over the years that people always gravitated towards him as the natural leader of whatever group he was in.

"Oh. Guess not." Bellamy, straightening up, glancing around at his sundry crew. Jasper and Monty were hovering behind him, and the girls were loosely grouped around a table a dozen yards from where they were.

The man shrugged. "We didn't either."

"Get to the point, Miller," The second guy spoke up, pushing the first man to the side and asking, "Do you want to join up or not?"

Bellamy was slightly taken aback by his brusque tone, but appreciated his directness. He turned and glanced back at the pair behind him. Monty was looking hesitantly at the guy, but Jasper nodded his head.

"Sure," Bellamy said.

"Great," The second guy said, sounding bored. "I'm Murphy. John Murphy. And this idiot is Nate Miller."

Miller glared at Murphy and said, "Glad to have you. We'd better get going though, we'll have time for introductions later."

Bellamy nodded and followed him as he started down the corridor, towards the gymnasium. They walked past the girls, who looked up and followed along. Harper and Octavia were in a fit about something, giggling and slumping into each other. Bellamy raised a brow at Clarke in question. Her only response was a good-nature eyeroll and a friendly shove to Octavia, who had bumped into her.

Then, Bellamy watched Clarke's face shift. He followed her gaze to see her eyes locked on Murphy, who was walking ahead of him. She looked confused, then concerned as she watched him, and Bellamy dropped back to be beside her. He wanted to be there, just in case something had upset her.

"I'm fine," Clarke quickly clarified, upon Bellamy's arrival.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to press the issue or not. Clarke's feelings were a sensitive subject and Bellamy was still learning how to navigate. If he asked questions, and they only served to further upset her, then he would be the bad guy.

In the end, it was Clarke who decided for him, again.

"I was just trying to think of where I knew him from. I've seen him before. Heard his voice. But I couldn't place it until just now," she explained. "What's his name? Something with an M, right?"

"Yeah, Murphy."

"Murphy!" Clarke exclaimed, a little too loudly. The boy in question turned over his shoulder at the sound of his name. Clarke flushed red and apologized, but Murphy seemed to have the same realization that Clarke had.

"Hey! You're the girl from the elevator!" He said, pointing at her like he'd made a grand discovery. "Remember? Last week, I don't know what day, but you were moving in. With that real dopey looking guy, with the long hair."

Now Bellamy knew why Clarke's face had paled at the sight of Murphy. The association to-

"Finn?" Raven asked curiously.

"I dunno his name," Murphy shrugged. "I just know I nearly ran him over, because Miller here stole my Hot Pocket!"

"Heaven forbid. Was it pepperoni? Because then we have a real crime on our hands," Bellamy said, trying to get the subject off Finn.

Raven was uninterested in the flavor of the Hot Pocket though. "Is that the first time you met Finn? He told me about that, that some jackass came flying out of the elevator and broke your basket."

Bellamy swallowed, thinking desperately on how to spin this conversation for the protection of Clarke.

"Yes," Clarke answered quietly.

"Hey now! The real jackass of the situation is the Hot Pocket thief," Murphy protested.

"I have to side with Murphy on this one, but do answer Bellamy's question. Was it pepperoni?" Jasper asked, invested.

"It was four meat."

"Gah!" Jasper cried out like he'd be struck, falling dramatically into Monty, who caught him under the arms, supporting his limp body. "Miller, you're a monster!"

Monty nodded, pushing Jasper off of himself, into Miller, who struggled to grab hold of the gangly boy. For the second time, Bellamy was glad for the boys' antics. Both times, it was for the benefit of Clarke. He glanced down at her now, and she was smiling faintly at the scene in front of her, despite her pale face.

"Sorry. But a man's gotta eat," Miller said. After righting Jasper, he looked amused at this new group of friends he'd stumbled into.

"No excuses. The Royal Court of College Boys demands you pay your fee in full, to one John Murphy." Jasper decreed with a finger in the air.

"My fee?"

Monty continued where Jasper left off, the pair of friends so in sync with one another. "Yes, the fee for Theft of Hot Pocket is double the amount of the item stolen. So, you stole one Hot Pocket, you must repay Murphy with two Hot Pockets."

"Two?"  
"Ah ha! I knew this would come back around to my favor!" Murphy cried, shaking Miller by his shoulders.

"Whatever man. A box of Hot Pockets is like, two bucks."

"I'm a broke college student! Free food is free food," Murphy said easily. Bellamy remembered Clarke saying the same thing to him last night, when they were talking about going to grocery bingo.

"Wait, are we going to get done in time for grocery bingo?" Bellamy asked the whole group.

"Yeah, I was counting on getting a box of granola bars," Monty said.

"We'll be fine if you just hurry up and get in there!" Octavia said commandingly, herding the boys towards the gymnasium door. They allowed themselves to be pushed, taking in the scene before them in the large space. Groups of people stood around, gathered mainly around a table in the center of court, talking and laughing.

"Where do we try out?" Monty asked, confused.

"Oh, this is intramurals," Miller said, unhelpfully. Bellamy was a little fuzzy on the terminology of college sports. This was obviously not a pro-level team, but there were different levels of sports that you could just play for fun. Intramurals and club sports.

"What's that mean?"

"It's just for fun. There are games on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays," Miller continued.

Monty glanced around. "I thought we had to like, audition."

"Audition? This isn't some theatre production," Murphy said in a crass tone.

"Wait, you mean we don't get to see you guys get reemed in the face today?" Raven was clearly disappointed.

"Oh no. You will," Murphy grinned. "The first tournament starts at 2:30, to get all of the teams seeded, so then they can make weekly brackets."

"Seeded? Like a garden?" Jasper said with disdain. Bellamy looked at him, utterly dumbfounded. Murphy fixed him with a stare that then slid to Bellamy reading, 'Is this guy stupid or what?'

"I take it you didn't play too many sports growing up," Bellamy said, suppressing his laugh. He noticed Clarke's bemused look as well, She hadn't left his side since Finn's name had been mentioned in the hall.

"Or play any," Murphy groaned.

"I still don't get it," Jasper pouted.

"It's like, a number of how good your team is. The best team is the highest seed, or the 1 seed, and the lowest seed is the worst seed. Then they match up the best team with the worst team, to weed out the losers," Clarke started explaining. "So like in the March Madness tournament, the 1 seed plays the 16 seed, then the 2 seed plays the 15 seed and so on. The games of the closer seeds are usually more competitive. The 1 seed and 16 seed games are usually blowouts." Bellamy was thoroughly impressed with the Princess. He didn't take her as a college basketball fan, but she was full of surprises it seemed.

Everyone else seemed to have the same reaction, and Bellamy could swear he saw Murphy drooling. But Clarke wasn't done dazzling them, seemingly enjoying the fact that she had them all stupefied.

"Bonus points to any who can tell me the only 1 seed to lose to a 16 seed," she beamed.

"2018, Virginia lost to UMBC!" Murphy cried out, throwing his hand in the air like Clarke was a teacher who would call upon him.

"Very good Murphy!" she praised him. "Now, extra bonus points to whoever can tell me UMBC's mascot?"

Bellamy smirked to himself, watching Murphy's face fall at the realization that he didn't know the answer.

"UMBC retrievers beat the University of Virginia Cavaliers by exactly 20 points before going on to face Kansas State."

Clarke turned her warm smile on him. "Excellent, Bellamy!"

"Okay! Enough trivia. This is dodgeball, not football," Octavia interrupted.

"Basketball," Bellamy said at the same time as Clarke and Murphy. They all three smirked at one another.

"Whatever. Go sign in!" She shoved Bellamy towards the table at the middle of the court.

Miller called after him, "Wait, we'll need a team name!"

Bellamy turned back around to face the group and Jasper piped up immediately.

"The Delinquents."

A beat passed.

Even Monty was looking at Jasper like he had sprouted a second head.

"The Delinquents?"

"Have you ever committed a crime in your life, Jasper?" Miller asked, doing the nest to hide his expression from him.

"I jay-walked once, in front of the library," Jasper said meekly, taking note of the faces surrounding him.

Murphy started cackling and soon they had all joined in. Jasper turned red in the face and started laughing along, whether as an attempt to save face or simply because he found it humorous, Bellamy wasn't sure.

"I'm not against it. I've got nothing better." Bellamy said, watching the other three boys shrug and nod.

"The Delinquents it is."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm all caught up, so updates will be weekly from now on. :) Thanks so much for reading.
> 
> -Birch66724


	21. Chapter 21

"I can't believe you made us come to this. I could be sleeping! Or studying! Or eating or even doing my laundry," Raven said, exasperated as she slumped into the bleachers, crossing her arms at Octavia.

"If I recall correctly, you wanted to come, because, 'We get to see them get hit in the face with balls!'" Octavia snipped back in a poor impersonation of Raven. It still made Clarke snicker though, which earned her a glare from her roommate.

"You did say that."

"You're supposed to be on my side, Clarke!"

"Sorry, can't argue with facts."

"I'm not saying that I didn't say that. I did. But that doesn't change the fact that this is simply-" Raven waved her hand to encompass the entirety of the gymnasium, "-atrocious! What are they even doing?!"

"They are making posters and flags," Harper said levelly, which of course, attracted Raven's glare like a magnet.

"This is a dodgeball tournament, not arts and crafts at Christian summer camp! They are meant to play dodgeball."

"Woah, Christian summer camp, sounds like there is a story behind that one." Octavia leaned forward, intrigued. Raven huffed at her and mumbled,

"I went there once. One time. And they made us do arts and flippin' crafts for hours. Every day."

Octavia cackled. "I was too poor to go to summer camp, I always wanted to know what it was like."

"Well you dodged a bullet. Consider yourself lucky," Raven said scornfully.

"It's not that bad, Raven." Clarke placed her hands on the girl's shoulders. "At least we're not just sitting around the dorm."

"We're sitting around this gym instead." Raven slumped into Clarke's knees instead, dropping her head into her lap.

"You'd think you were being tortured," Octavia muttered, the humor leaving quickly.

"I'd rather have my fingernails ripped out one by one. Might liven this up a bit."

Clarke shook her head at Raven, gazing out over the gym to where Bellamy and the other boys were kneeling on the floor before a large poster board and an array of paints and markers. She had to admit that it was rather boring, especially since they had been forbidden to help The Delinquents make their poster. It was some kind of precursor competition, before the actual tournament started. There were about three dozen teams scattered throughout the space, coloring and drawing and painting. It was sort of comical, watching these nearly grown men crouch on the floor with paint brushes.

"Look," Octavia said, standing up. They glanced over to where Monty was waving them over to their corner.

Clarke hauled an unwilling Raven to her feet, pulling her down the bleachers and across the gym floor by her wrist.

"Ta dah!" Jasper said, stepping back proudly, revealing the completed poster. Clarke tilted her head to the side, trying to figure out what the conglomeration of shapes and colors were. She guessed the other girls' reactions were similar, based on Jasper's disgruntled huff. He snatched the poster off the floor and pointed to a large shape on the side, his gaze imploring.

"What is it?" Harper asked softly.

"It's a spaceship!" He proclaimed as if repulsed by the thought that none of them got it.

"Why?" Octavia asked harshly.

"Because spaceships are awesome," Jasper said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

'You're not wrong," Raven agreed and Jasper nodded approvingly at her.

"Thank you."

"What's this other stuff?"

"Oh, that's each of our handprints, and those are supposed to be dodgeballs with flames on them, because you know, we're going to throw them so fast they will be liable to catching fire," Monty explained.

Clarke could sort of make out what he was describing, but it mostly looked like a bucket of paint had been dumped onto the poster, then someone had mushed their hands into it, before writing 'The Delinquents' haphazardly across the top in Sharpie marker.

"It's nice," she said, smiling at the boys. In reality, it almost physically pained her to look at it. Her artistic side was cringing away from the monstrosity that was this poster.

"I said less glitter but Jasper insisted," Miller said.

"Now we probably look like a bunch of fairies," Murphy was more gruff.

"Hey now," Bellamy warned.

A voice on a loudspeaker over the gym announced that the tournament would be starting in ten minutes, right after the posters were judged so the initial matchups could be made.

"Let's get this party started!" Raven whooped, pushing Monty towards the rest of the team from where he had been slinking away, seemingly gunshy now that it was time to actually take part in the sport.

"Wait, I want to take a picture! Hold up your poster." Harper shuffled them together, arranging them from behind her phone's camera whilst Murphy muttered,

"Dear God, I didn't know my mother followed me to college."

"You'll be glad to have it in ten years," Clarke defended Harper, catching Bellamy's eye from where he stood with an arm slung over Miller's shoulder. He flashed a bright, cheeky grin at Clarke and Harper snapped the photo.

"What? For my scrapbook?" Murphy retorted and then Raven rounded on him.

"Listen here you, you cockroach! Harper is just trying to do something nice for all of you so shut up about it or get out."

Murphy threw up his hands in mock surrender and ducked away from her. Raven, satiated now by her reprimanding of Murphy, made her way back to the girl's spot on the bleachers.

"Good luck," Clarke said over her shoulder.

Bellamy was the only one to respond from where he was bringing up the rear of his team. "Thanks, Princess. You too."

The Delinquents got 17th place out of 36 teams for their poster. Clearly, teenage boys and art supplies weren't the greatest combination.

The tournament commenced and they proved to be halfway decent at the sport at least. Well, Bellamy, Miller, and Murphy were good. They crushed their first match, and then their second. It was actually pretty exciting to watch once they got going. Clarke was sort of impressed with how athletic and competitive Bellamy was. Of course she knew that he was muscular and well built, but he seemed to be having such a great time, grinning while he leapt and ducked around, taunting the other team and clapping his teammates on the back.

Jasper and Monty were a bit more reluctant to join in, especially after seeing some of the opponents. They lingered behind the three other guys, only coming forward when the others would get out. Jasper was a gangly kid, but he could rifle a ball with the best of them. And, he was less cumbersome on the floor. Whereas Bellamy and Miller had to rely mostly on catching or blocking any ball thrown at them, Jasper could shimmy out of the way like he was made of rubber.

In the third game, Murphy nearly got into a fistfight with the referee over his near headshot. The ball had hit him in the neck, and he was called out. Despite the ruling, he was determined to make a case for himself, that he had, in fact, been hit in the head. He was yelling and stomping around the referee, who was no more than another college kid who clearly had no idea what to do about the situation.

Eventually, Bellamy and Miller talked him down, and they still scraped out the win with a fantastic catch by Monty that had all of the girls cheering from the bleachers. The other four boys rushed Monty and hoisted him up on their shoulders, much to Monty's bewilderment. He perched precariously there and smiled widely as they paraded him across the gym.

Then, The Delinquents were in the quarterfinals after nearly three hours of dodgeball, facing The Grounders. Bellamy stepped forward to shake hands with an enormously muscled guy before the match started. He looked far older than college aged, but then again, Bellamy was… how old was Bellamy? Clarke made a mental note to ask him that. Anyway, Bellamy was older than the typical incoming freshman but there he was, playing intramural dodgeball.

"Jeez, look at that guy," Harper commented.

"Yeah…" Octavia sighed.

The other three girls shared a look behind Octavia's head. She wouldn't have noticed anyway, what with the eyes she was making at the other man. Clarke watched as he then glanced up at where they were sitting and gave a barely perceptible nod. Clarke noticed though and got the feeling that something was not quite as it seemed.

The game commenced and The Delinquents were quickly outmatched by The Grounders. Murphy got out almost instantly, nailed right in the stomach. He looked as if he was about to argue again, but a glare from Bellamy banished him quietly to the sidelines. A ball ricocheted off of Miller and Monty scrambled to catched it, but it slipped through his hands and fell to the floor, getting both boys out.

Jasper, sensing their impending doom at 5 vs 2, flew forward from the back line where he had been hovering with a strangled sort of battle cry, a ball in each hand. He launched one high, trying to entice the opponent to catch it as a distraction, and misled the other one towards the huge guy. The distraction worked, but on the wrong person. Bellamy was so surprised by Jasper's outburst, that he was hit with a weakly thrown ball in the leg. Both of Jasper's balls were caught, and the game was over.

Clarke followed the girls down to the floor, where both teams were gathering on the side of the court to get out of the way for the second quarterfinal game.

"-throw you got there, kid." Clarke caught the end of what the big guy said, patting Jasper on the shoulder. Jasper was gaping at him, looking starstruck over the intramural dodgeball player.

"Go on and introduce yourself then," Raven nudged Octavia forward.

Octavia poorly feigned surprise. "Huh? Introduce myself?"

Raven scoffed, nodding at the man. Octavia drew herself back as if insulted. Clarke chuckled at Octavia as she ducked away, her eyes never leaving him though. They approached and Clarke watched the two people make eye contact for a bit longer than normal for a first meeting.

"Good game," Clarke said, making herself known with a friendly wave.

"Yeah, it was great," Bellamy said, coming up alongside her. He smelled of sweat and exertion, which was strangely not totally repulsive.

"It was. Nice to meet you all, I'm Lincoln," the guy said, glancing behind him as if to introduce the rest of his team, but they had scattered behind him, chatting with more people. "Hmm."

"I'm Octavia. It's nice to meet you, Lincoln."

"You too, Octavia," he replied, again his gaze lingered a touch too long. The whole exchange was terribly formal and completely weird to Clarke.

They were interrupted before anyone else seemed to notice though, by a tall girl coming up behind Lincoln, her gaze intent on Bellamy.

"Hey you," she said, sounding as if she already knew him. Knew him quite well. Clarke was a bit taken aback, but she was careful to ensure it didn't show on her face. "Did you get to where you needed to go on, oh, what night was that?" She said breezily.

"Uh, yeah. I did," Bellamy said with a glance down at Clarke. She returned his gaze levelly, feeling like she was missing something.

"That's good. I was watching you play, because, well how could I not!" She laughed lightly before continuing, "And I thought you looked familiar, but I couldn't remember where I knew you from."

"Hmm," Bellamy said without returning any of the playful inflection in this girl's voice.

"And then you ran off so fast that night, I didn't even get your name."

"It's Bellamy."

"Oh! Well, I'm Echo. Nice to see you again." Clarke was confused by this exchange as well, but she couldn't back away so these two could talk to each other. Raven was right behind her, engrossed in conversation with Miller and Murphy in a tight circle that Clarke couldn't just slip into. She was stuck between this awkward conversation and the awkward looks between Octavia and this Lincoln guy.

"Yeah," Bellamy said.

"You were great out there. Don't tell the rest of the team, but you definitely carried," Echo leaned into Bellamy, as if telling him a secret, except she didn't lower her voice so she was still heard loud and clear.

"Thanks. But it's a team sport, so not really."

Clarke was a bit surprised at how cold and reserved Bellamy was being. She really didn't know him all that well, but the side of him she did know was amiable and warm.

"Anyway, I think we're heading to Hodge's Bend after the championship game if you want to stick around and join us?" Echo asked.

"Uh, no, but thanks. We've got plans, don't we, Clarke?"

Her name coming from Bellamy's mouth startled Clarke from her musings about where she had heard of that place before. "Hmm?" She looked up, not having heard the beginning of the question. Echo was looking at her in an unsettling way and Clarke shifted away. Bellamy was looking at her intently as he asked again,

"We've got plans, don't we?"

Clarke was confused. She didn't have plans with Bellamy… "Oh! You mean bingo?"

"Bingo?" Echo started to laugh.

"Yeah. Bingo," Clarke said flatly. She wasn't sure she was too fond of this Echo chick.

"C'mon. We'd better get going if we want to make it on time," Bellamy said, laying a hand on Clarke's shoulder and turning her away from Echo. Clarke could feel the other girl's gaze on her back as she retreated, guided by Bellamy.

"Well, see you around."

"Sure," Bellamy waved goodbye with his free hand without turning around.

Bellamy rounded up the rest of the group, and Miller and Murphy decided to go along with them on the pretense of free food.

Once outside, Clarke realized how late it had gotten. The lack of windows in the gymnasious had hidden the passing of time, so it was a bit of a surprise to walk out into the near dusk.

Bellamy noticed when Clarke gave pause in the doorway, hesitating on the threshold. Her stomach seized up and some invisible force was holding her back, like the dark air had formed into a solid, impenetrable mass. Bellamy held the door for her and turned a soft gaze back. The rest of the group had gone out ahead of them, laughing about the bruise forming on Murphy's neck. Their voices rang out in the night, competing with the traffic noises playing over the air.

"I'm alright," Clarke said quickly, darting outside, trying to avoid Bellamy's concerned eyes. It was making her skin crawl for some reason right now, probably just because she didn't know what had come over her.

"What's wrong Clarke?" He asked, jogging a few paces to catch up with her. She wrapped her arms tightly about herself, looking down at the pavement.

"Nothin," she said offhandedly.

"Okay."

Clarke was glad that he didn't pry. She wanted to say something to get the feeling out of the air, and the first thing that came out of her mouth was, "I miss the sounds of the crickets. Haven't got any of those in Minneapolis."

It was just random enough to take Bellamy aback.

"Guess not. Not down town anyway, but there are plenty here."

"Yeah?"

"Definitely. And cicadas and frogs and aphids. All kinds of singing things. Sometime we'll go on a road trip and listen. Maybe once the leaves change," Bellamy mused and Clarke felt her anxiety start to dissipate with the wistful tone of Bellamy's voice.

She chuckled and he glanced down. "Have you got a car?"

"Well, no. We can take the bus."

"Sounds like a plan." Bellamy held out his hand and Clarke shook it, letting her tightly wrapped arms come undone. "Maybe we can ask Raven to borrow her Jeep."

Bellamy nodded. "I know just the place."

"Yeah?"

"But it's a secret. I can't have you looking it up ahead of time and spoiling the view for yourself."

"Oh really? So it has a view. What makes you think I can't find it on my own?" Clarke raised a brow at Bellamy with a teasing smile.

"You wouldn't," he glowered.

"Never know."

They were interrupted by Jasper and Murphy shouting ahead. The group had paused at the corner, waiting for the light to turn.

"It is not, 'Hey there Delilah, what's it like in New York City'," Jasper said.

"Yes! It is!" Murphy was standing in front of him, glaring.

"No! It's "How's it like in New York City.'"

"Dear God," Raven muttered.

"Listen to yourself! How's it like? That doesn't even make sense!"

"It doesn't have to make sense to be right!" Jasper retorted indignantly, not backing down. Murphy looked around at the assembled crowd as if unable to believe they were listening to blasphemy this without speaking up. Clarke and Bellamy shared a look before they both started struggling to conceal their laughter.

"Uh, Jasper," Monty spoke up, pulling Jasper's attention away from staring Murphy down. "He's right."

"Haha real funny, Monty."

"No, I'm not joking, Jasper."

"Finally, someone with some sense!" Murphy exclaimed, snatching Monty's phone out of his hands and jabbing his finger at the screen where the boy had pulled up the lyrics to Hey There Delilah.

"Look! Open you peasant eyes and behold! 'Hey there Delilah, what's it like in New York City'!" Murphy yelled. "What's! What's it like!"

"I refuse to believe lies." Jasper stood tall and turned his face away.

"Dude, it's right there. You're wrong," Miller said sensibly. Jasper only hoisted his nose higher into the air. Clarke was just an observer as everyone else dissolved into trying to convince Jasper to concede and admit that he was wrong, because Murphy wasn't going to relent until he said the words.

"Just admit it dude," Bellamy said, fed up with the whole bit.

"Yeah, we're late now," Octavia grumbled. Jasper looked lost, his resolve fading as he glanced around at the irritated faces. Clarke was still trying to figure out why he was so dead set on not apologizing and admitting his mistake.

"Okay, okay! I was wrong," he muttered, barely audible.

"What was that?" Murphy leaned forward with a hand cupped to his ear.

Miller pulled him upright. "Leave it."

"Fine. Only because I'm trying to be the bigger person."

Octavia and Raven made identical scoffs and started off down the street.

"Get outta here," Miller shoved Murphy and they started jogging to catch up. Clarke was nervous for a moment that this stupid argument was going to lead to a whole dispute with punches thrown and newly foraged friendships jepordized. She quickly realized that wasn't the MO of this group, as not two minutes later, they were skipping into the Hall, singing Hey There Delilah at the top of their lungs.

"Ohhh, it's what you do to meeee! It's what you do to meee!"

It was one of those moments when Clarke felt like she was on top of the world and totally in control. She was confident and content and surrounded by a whole group of friends. Even if she had only made them over the past couple of weeks, she knew they were the stuff lifelong companions were made of. The whole year was ahead of her, and nothing was going to prevent her from experiencing all college had to offer.


	22. Chapter 22

Bellamy stared at his dwindling pile of snacks where they were stacked on the unused desk. It had been six days since his victory at bingo, six days since the dodgeball tournament, six days without seeing Clarke. He knew he should be happy about that fact, as she hadn't needed to call him for any reason, but he couldn't help but feel a little bit disappointed. He quite simply missed her.

She had, however, been a loyal correspondent through text, as she had had trouble falling asleep twice over the past six day, on Monday and Wednesday. They had also chatted back and forth through their more boring classes. For Clarke, it was English and for Bellamy it was College Algebra. They'd even talked on the phone about Clarke's English assignment on Greek Mythology and Bellamy had been itching to spill his copious knowledge on the topic. Maybe he had wanted to impress Clarke, or maybe he simply wanted to help her out. Either way, she had been impressed, and if they hadn't spent thirty minutes chatting, she would have had the paper knocked out in under an hour.

Clarke had tried to help him with the Algebra, but it was difficult through text. Bellamy remembered how he had waited impatiently for her to respond to his question if she wanted to meet him, to work in person, but Clarke had declined without citing a reason. Bellamy had swallowed down his disappointment with a sort of bitter confusion. Perhaps his resignation from Octavia's day to day life had left him craving someone to watch over. He chalked it up to that, and that he and Clarke were friends. Friends hung out with one another and friends missed each other when they didn't see each other for a week.

Six days. Bellamy corrected himself.

They were both busy, he knew that. On Sunday, the girls were cleaning their dorm and bathroom, then shopping together. Clarke had kept him updated on Octavia and the shenanigans they were getting up to, like Harper having a photoshoot with the cashier in Target or Raven trying to hurdle jump a wet floor sign and nearly breaking her wrist when she slipped so hard on the wet floor beneath the sign. Bellamy had laughed aloud when Clarke told him that. She had such a way of describing things, even through text, that he was amazed she thought she was bad at English.

On Monday, Clarke had told him she was working on a 'new project' for him. Bellamy had immediately demanded to know what it was, but Clarke, of course, refused to even give him a hint. Bellamy had spent the last four days guessing at what it might be, but Clarke still vehemently refused to tell if it was right or wrong, although she had let it slip that is was not another baked good after Bellamy had guessed, as Clarke put it, "Every desert known to man on the entire Earth, Moon, solar system, galaxy and beyond".

Tuesday Bellamy and the guys got together at the Recreation Center to mess around in the gym and practice their dodgeball strategy. Bellamy was growing to like Miller, he seemed reasonable and level headed, which Bellamy considered to be important qualities. Murphy on the other hand, sort of grated on Bellamy's nerves. Thankfully, Murphy usually picked his bones with Jasper, so Bellamy could just observe the tribulations he was put through.

Wednesday came around and Clarke went out with one of her new friends, Lexa, from one of her classes, Bellamy had forgotten which.

On Thursday, Bellamy had the rather unfortunate experience of running into Echo again. Now that he thought back on it, it didn't exactly seem like an accident the way he had stumbled upon her. She had been leaning against the doorway of the cafeteria when Bellamy walked in, and she swooped towards him like a hawk zeroing in on a field mouse. He had jumped in surprise by the sound of her voice, as he had earbuds in and was clearly not an inviting image with his black hood up and his hands jammed into his pockets.

Echo had gotten her lunch and sat down at Bellamy's table without an invitation. He tried to keep an open mind, so he forced himself to actually talk to her. She told him about her family, which included her older brother Roan, who was a senior at the University. He was a member of The Grounders dodgeball team, and Echo made a promise to introduce them the next time they played. She told him she was going to a career in either criminal investigation or physical education, she hadn't decided yet, as she loved fitness and the like, although she hated kids. Bellamy had laughed, thinking she was making a joke, because how could you be a teacher if you hate kids? But Echo had only stared at him, clearly as serious as a heart attack. Overall, it had been a strange experience for Bellamy, but Echo mustn't have thought so, as she asked if he wanted to do it again. He said maybe and walked away.

Now it was Friday, and Bellamy had gone to classes all day, finished all of the homework he cared to do for one evening, and was laying on his bed, staring at his dwindling snacks. He wondered if they were having grocery bingo again tomorrow, as it was a good deal, the free food and all. He could ask Clarke if she was going, she probably was, along with the rest of the girls. That would mean Harper would ask Monty to go, so Jasper would tag along, and then Bellamy could also go without raising any suspicions.

Just then, a text came in from Miller, asking if he wanted to go out for drinks with Murphy and meet some of his other friends.

Bellamy screwed his lips to the side, considering the offer. It would be nice to get out for a few hours, do some typical college guy stuff, but the appeal of bars had long worn off for Bellamy. He was older than the average college freshman. He didn't even need a fake ID to get into bars or clubs, and half the fun was seeing if you could make it in illegally without getting caught.

Did he really want to meet Miller's other friends? It sort of sounded like a night of awkward small talk.

Then, Clarke texted him.

C: Hey, what are you up to tonight? Raven went out with Octavia and Harper is doing something with Monty.

Well, this wasn't a hard decision at all. Bellamy quickly declined Miller's offer with a 'next weekend' and was standing outside of Clarke's door in a couple of minutes. Only then did he realize he hadn't even responded to her text. He blinked in surprise and drew his hand back from where he had been about to knock on the door. How had he gotten so ahead of himself?

B: Not much. You have anything in mind?

C: Oh, you just assume I was asking you to do something? :)

Bellamy realized that was exactly what he had done, given that he was standing outside of her door right now.

B: Yeah. Who wouldn't want to hang out with the great Bellamy himself?

C: Hmm. Come up if you want, we can figure something out.

B: K. C U soon.

C: Bellamy! Use your words! It's not that hard!

Bellamy grinned, having used the abbreviations just to get a rise out of Clarke. Ever since she let on that it irritated her, he just couldn't resist. It was too easy.

He knocked on the door and heard Clarke shuffling around inside, then she cursed. The door swung open and Clarke was crouching on the floor, clutching her foot.

"Clarke?"

"Yeah?" She asked, looking up at Bellamy with a pained face.

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothin'. Just stubbed my toe." She sniffed and stood up. "Ouch. Stubbed toes have got to be up there with the most painful things in the world."

"Yeah, right up there with childbirth," Clarke joked.

"I was thinking more along the lines of getting kicked in the balls, which is the ultimate pain, but childbirth seems pretty bad, too."

Clarke leveled him with a glare that said, 'Watch it, buddy', and Bellamy laughed.

"I'm just joking, of course."

"Are you?" Clarke cocked a playful brow.

"Of course. Women are far superior to men in every imaginable way," Bellamy said, bowing his head so far to Clarke that his nose nearly touched his knee.

She chuckled. "Smart man. Hey, how'd you get here so fast?"

"Uh," Bellamy stalled. "I live just downstairs, you know. How's your toe?"

"Inflamed. Red. Pulsating," Clarke said thoughtfully, twisting her ankle to look at her injured foot from all directions.

Bellamy watched her feet retreat further into her room so he rose back up, watching her. She tucked the corner of something under a blanket on her bed before bending down to pick up a few pencils from the carpet.

"So, when are you going to tell me about this special project you're working on?" He questioned, eyeing the blanket. Clarke followed his eyeline and quickly sidestepped between Bellamy and her bed.

"I uh, it's not done yet. And no, before you ask, you may not have a sneak peak," she said firmly. Bellamy knew his face reflected the surprise he felt that she had been able to guess the next words he'd wanted to speak. She smiled somewhat smugly, recognizing his expression.

"Okay…" He said slowly, formulating a plan. "What do you want to do then?"

"I dunno. When is the first football game?" She asks, sidetracking Bellamy.

"Tomorrow I think, but-"

"Really? Can we go? Do you have to get tickets beforehand? Or do we get student passes or something? I've never been to a professional football game before. Well, I guess college football isn't exactly professional, but I've never been to anything bigger than a highschool game. Minnesota is in the Big 10, right?"

Bellamy couldn't keep up with all her questions, so he started ticking them off on his fingers. "I would love to go. I don't know where to get tickets. I don't know about student passes. You're right, college football isn't professional, that'd be the NFL, but they are exciting. Yes, we are a Big 10 school."

Clarke seemed to find Bellamy's system of keeping track of her questions very amusing, judging by the look on her face.

"What?" Bellamy asked.

"Nothing." Clarke's lips quirked and she looked away.

"I hate that!" He warned.

"Hate what?" Clarke questioned in a sickly sweet innocent voice.

"Hate when you ask someone something, and they say, 'nothing!' Octavia used to do that. She still does. I'd come home, and ask her what she was reading, and she'd just say, "Nothing!', like, you're obviously not reading nothing, the book is right there in your hands!"

Now Clarke was just laughing at him, and Bellamy chuckled.

"Sorry, didn't know I'd touched a nerve there," she said on an inhale, then bit the tip of her tongue between her tongue and kept laughing as Bellamy shook his head.

"I am very passionate about receiving an answer to the question I asked," he justified weakly.

"Okay," Clarke said, nodding through her grin. "I would tell you, but now I don't even remember what you asked."

"Me either," Bellamy said, moving to sit on Clarke's bed.

"No!" She cried, her face changing quickly from her jovial expression to one of concern.

"Wha'?"

"Don't sit there!" Clarke said quickly, wedging herself further between Bellamy and the bed, planting her hands on his back and pushing him away.

"Why ever not? What's under there?"

"Noth-"

Bellamy cut Clarke off with a raised brow. His plan was working flawlessly.

"It's uh-" She stared at the lumpy blanket.

"Hmm?"

"It's something secret," She finally said, looking up at Bellamy with a guilty little smile.

"Oh? Is it?" He drawled, taking a few small steps around the dorm while Clarke maintained her defensive position in front of the bed.

"What are you getting at, Blake?" Clarke said sharply. Bellamy glanced up, eyeing the change in her face. He didn't like her calling him Blake, it reminded him of what his highschool teachers used to call him, his boss of his summer job, the police officer at the door when they came to arrest his mother. Blake.

"Nothin'," Bellamy said with a sly smile. They were playing a game now, a game that Bellamy had the upper hand in.

"Whatever you're doing, knock it off! I'm warning you!" Clarke spat. Even though he knew she was only playing along, the venom in her voice was cutting enough that he had to do a double take. Something similar to the feeling of snow down the back of your winter coat snaked its way up Bellamy's spine.

"I'm not doing anything, but then again, I'm not the one with something to hide," he said lightly.

Clarke tilted her head to the side. "It's really for your own good, that I'm hiding it from you."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes, Bellamy!" Clarke shouted.

"Hmm," he hummed. "What will it cost, to see it?"

"There is no price tag! I said no!"

"Are you sure?" Bellamy ducked his head and peared up at Clarke through slitted eyes, cocking one brow. She looked as if she was choking as she tried to hold back her laugh.

"What are you doing?" She broke down in giggles, abandoning her stoick facade.

"You mean that didn't work? The puppy dog eyes didn't convince you to do anything in the world for me?"

"The only thing it convinced me of is that you're the biggest weirdo I've ever met," Clarke said.

"Ouch!"

"Sorry, the truth hurts," Clarke shrugged, her laughter wound down and she seemed to get self conscious, grabbing her elbow and hugging herself. Bellamy watched her, sort of confused about what had just transpired. He had been acting so unlike himself just then. The only person he had ever joked around with like that was Octavia, but that was years ago. His little sister had long outgrown his teasing remarks, returning them with only a glare and a scoff that grew more indignant with each year that passed.

Clarke though, she seemed to appreciate it, and that set a warm feeling growing in his chest.

"So, what is it you want to do?" Bellamy asked her then, abandoning his plan to steal a look at her special project. He'd just have to be patient, although that was never his strong suit.

Clarke screwed her mouth to the side and got that thoughtful look on her face, Bellamy revealed in the fact that he could already recognise it, and admitted he'd missed seeing her over the past six days.

"Oh!" An idea popped into her head and her whole face lit up. "I heard Harper say something, that she was going out for Juicy Lucys with Monty a couple of days ago, but before I could ask her what that meant, she was gone."

Bellamy stared at her until her bright-eyed look faltered, she flushed rosy pink and looked away. "Unless that means something I don't know about...I should have looked it up first maybe," she mumbled.

"Oh, Princess," Bellamy smiled.

"What?"

"I guess I forgot that you're not from around here."

Clarke looked up, asking him to continue.

"A Juicy Lucy is something so quintessentially Minnesotan, I can hardly believe you've never heard of it before. You've lived here for what? Two weeks now?"

Clarke nodded. "What is it?"

Bellamy only shook his head. "It is not something that can be described in words, it must be experienced first hand."

"Well okay, looks like we figured out what we're doing tonight."

"Perfect! I was getting hu-" Bellamy stopped mid sentence, dawning on the realization that he now had more leverage in his game.

"Getting what?" Clarke asked, oblivious with her back turned. She was fishing out something that had fallen between her bed and nightstand, leaning over with one leg raised into the air.

"Oh, nothing."

"Bellamy, you are such a hypocrite!" She chastised, shaking her head as she stood up, brushing a bit of fuzz from a pack of gum.

"All I'm saying is, two can play at your game of withholding hints," he replied cryptically. Clarke looked confused for a moment before realizing. Then she just exhaled and shook her head.

"You're too much."

"I try," Bellamy replied sweetly.

"Where are we going?"

"You'll just have to wait and see, now won't you?"

"Bellamy! I am just asking if I should change, or if I need to bring money, or anything else. What kind of shoes should I wear?"

Bellamy felt a lightness in the way he was holding his knowledge over Clarke in a sort of way. It was entertaining how little she knew about Minnesota and it's unique little subculture, and he definitely wanted to show her everything there was to know.

"Just, wear what you would normally wear."

"That's helpful," She said dryly, looking down at her outfit, which consisted of a pair of grey shorts and a pale yellow shirt. Her hair was down around her shoulders and as far as Bellamy could tell, she wasn't wearing any makeup. It didn't matter.

"You look fine," he said, then cringed. What girl wanted to be told she looked fine? But before he could revise his statement, Clarke said,

"Thanks. Okay, let's go."

"Alright. You fine walking? I can call a Lyft if you want, but it's like, two miles or something."

"No, I'd like to walk!" she said hurriedly. "It's a nice day," she added.

"Okay, whatever works," Bellamy said easily, opening the door for Clarke to walk through.

"You want a piece of gum?" She offered, holding out the foil wrapped stick.

"Sure," Bellamy reached out for it, only for Clarke to snatch it back.

"You know, on second thought, I only have eleven pieces left, I'd better save it… Although I supposed if you shared some information with me, perhaps the location of this Juicy Lucy, or what this Juicy Lucy is, I could spare a piece." Clarke said striding down the hall, talking over her shoulder.

Bellamy stole her signature eye roll as he caught up with her.

"Hmm. I don't think I'm at liberty to disclose that information."

"Ugh Bellamy! I really thought that would work," Clarke grumbled.

"You've underestimated me, although you almost got me. Because spearmint is my favorite." Clarke said at the same time as Bellamy.

He glanced at her curiously as they made their way out onto the street.

"How'd you know that?"

"Oh, you know," Clarke said, looking down at the flowerbeds surrounding the flagpole in front of the Hall.

"Claaarke," Bellamy groaned.

"You're right, this game is getting a little old."

"So you'll tell me about the surprise?"

"No!" Clarke shouted. "I'll tell you about the gum. Octavia mentioned it this afternoon when I offered her a piece."

"Hmm, I didn't think Octavia would have remembered something like that," Bellamy said softly, touched that she would.

"Of course she would. She's your sister."

"I guess. Are you that close with your siblings?" Bellamy asked, "Wait! You are an only child."

"Yeah. I'd like to think I would be though. I always wanted a sibling," Clarke said, trailing her fingers along the rough brick of the building they were walking past. Bellamy directed her left around a corner and they continued walking.

"Did you want a brother or a sister?"

"Well, I always wanted an older brother, or a younger sister."

"Trust me, younger sisters aren't all that great," Bellamy joked.

Clarke frowned. Bellamy was spending so much time looking down at her face he nearly walked into a mailbox. Clarke didn't seem to notice, she was too concentrated on staring down at her feet.

"I'm sure everyone has their days, but I just wished I had someone to go through things with, you know? Especially after my dad died, it was just so…, lonely around the house. And a sibling would have been able to understand what I was going through."

Bellamy felt for Clarke, because truthfully, he loved Octavia more than life itself. His life without her was unimaginable.

"I get that. They are nice. Sometimes."

"Yeah. And it was never a huge deal, because my dad was always very hands on with me as a kid. He'd take me places and play all kinds of games with me. I was never bored, but after he died…"

"I'm sorry, Clarke."

"For what?" She asked softly, kicking a rock down the pavement.

Bellamy didn't know what to say. He was sorry for lots of things. Sorry that her dad died, sorry about what Finn did to her, sorry that she was struggling. He didn't reply; he was so lost in thoughts.

It was only when they paused at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to turn, that Bellamy felt Clarke's eyes on him. He gazed back into her shifting blue irises and tried to express through a look how he felt. He thought that Clarke understood, as the gentlest smile crept over her face. The evening sun was setting her hair aglow and her cheeks were rosy against the golden shine.

"I don't want you to feel sorry for me," she said earnestly.

"Sorry for you? I-"

"You have struggled through so many things in your life too, things that I can't even start to imagine!" she said, looking fretful.

"Clarke! It's not-" Bellamy struggled to put into words what he felt. It was true that she had had a better life than him, what with parents that had legitimate jobs and always enough money, but that didn't mean he deserved her pity anymore than she deserved his.

"It's not about that. My life was always shitty. I was born into it and I never knew it any different. I never had a dad, and I always wondered what that would have been like, but not having a dad also meant that I never have to go through the pain of losing one."

Clarke didn't look convinced, but she nodded nonetheless.

"We're just different, is all. We have had different lives, but here, at this point right now, or lives are, are intersecting, and we can make the most of that," He said as they reached the other side of the road.

That made Clarke smile, which immediately brightened his mood. "Put like a true poet, Blake."

"Hmm. I don't like that."

"What? Being a poet? I think it's good to be, well, good, with words, makes you sound sophisticated."

"No, not being a poet. I meant Blake."

Clarke peered up at him, confused. "You don't like your last name?"

Bellamy couldn't help but chuckle. "No, Clarke. I like my last name fine. I just don't like when you say it."

"I'm not following," Clarke replied, sidestepping closer to Bellamy as a large group of men dressed as if for a bachelor party passed by. Close enough that her hair brushed his bare arm and he could smell that sweet scent that hung about her like an aura.

"No, it's just so informal. And I thought we were friends."

"We are friends," Clarke said firmly, clearly not getting his point.

"I don't want you to call me Blake because that's what old men call me. Like, 'Blake, come 'er.' "

"Like your football coach?" she asked.

"Yeah, if I had played football he probably would have called me Blake."

"You didn't play football?" Clarke asked, sounding surprised.

"No. Too busy working."

"Aww. You would have been a great flyback."

"Flyback, eh?"

"Yeah, you're sturdy without being stocky. I bet you can move pretty quick, too. You'd be intimidating enough without being an absolute slug on the field."

"Thanks, Princess. I didn't know you were into football so much."

"Oh, I've always liked sports. It was one of the things my dad and I always did together. We'd watch every single game on TV, football, hockey, basketball, baseball…"

"That's nice. And yeah, you're right. I would have been the best damn flyback ever."

"You would have been. Probably would have been recruited, too. Hell! It could be you I was going to watch play tomorrow!"

Bellamy chuckled and smiled wistfully at Clarke. In truth, he had always wanted to play football, and he had played in elementary and middle school, but once highschool rolled around, there had simply been no time in his busy life schedule for extracurriculars. Talking about it now, he felt like an old man, looking back on his life, when in reality, he was still young with most of his life stretching out ahead of him like an untrodden path, ready and waiting to be discovered.

They walked on for a moment, with Clarke staring up at the buildings and looking into windows.

"But back to this Blake thing," she continued. "I only tried calling you that because you have a nickname for me, so I wanted one for you." Bellamy nodded. "And the most logical nickname for you would be Bell, but Octavia calls you that, so I wanted something better."

"Hmm."

"But, you say you don't like it! So I guess it's back to the drawing board."

"I guess so."

"But I need more material! What's your middle name? I was going to ask Octavia, but I didn't want her getting all weird like Raven has been."

"Raven's been weird?" Bellamy asked, slightly concerned. Was Clarke's roommate suspecting something about Finn?

"Yeah, you know how she is…" Clarke said faintly as again her cheeks glowed rosy.

"Ohh, because she thinks that you and I are… awfully close," Bellamy said slyly, rather liking Clarke's bashful reaction.

"Yeah, but anyway, don't change the topic! What's your middle name?"

Bellamy frowned. His middle name wasn't something he often discussed.

Clarke gauged his reaction. "What, is it embarrassing or something?

"No, it's Alexander."

"Bellamy Alexander Blake," Clarke said and Bellamy shivered at the way his full name rolled off her tongue. No one had ever said his name like that and he never wanted anyone else to.

"I like it," Clarke said decisively. "Is there a meaning behind it?"

"Yeah."

Clarke waited for him to go on. Bellamy had never told anyone the meaning behind his middle name, as he'd never been asked to, probably because he never even told anyone what it was.

"My mother always used to read me Greek Mythology, you know, and I read it to Octavia. That's where her name came from too."

"I didn't know there was an Alexander in Mythology? All I know is Alexander the Great, but I thought he was the King of Macedonia."

"Macedon," Bellamy corrected gently.

"Right, Mr. History."

He chuckled and bumped into her, to which she stuck her tongue out at him in reply.

"Anyway, Alexander or he's otherwise called Alexandros, was the son of King Priam, he's the one who eloped with Helen of Troy and caused the whole Trojan War."

"I thought that was…" Claarke donned her thinking face once again as she searched for the more common name of the mythological figure. Bellamy didn't offer her any hints so he could watch the way her mouth screwed to one side and her brows drew together, shading her blue eyes.

She thought for a moment more, then shouted out, "Paris!"

"Bingo," Bellamy praised and she smiled, looking pleased.

"Well okay then, Paris. How close are we to this place?"

"Uh, right on this next corner."

"Perfect."

They walked a little bit further before Bellamy stopped Clarke in front of a building. She squinted up at the lettering above the door.

"Matt's Bar and Grill?" she asked.

"Yep," Bellamy led her up to the door and ushered her into the bar, which was quite packed on a Friday night.

They were greeted by a bubbly woman at the entrance. "Welcome to Matt's Bar and Grill, home of the Original Jucy Lucy. Table for two?"

"Yes, please," Bellamy said.

"You're in luck, just cleared one off!" She said, motioning for them to follow her. "I'm Ella, I'll be your waitress tonight." She set a couple of menus down on a high topped table. "Go ahead and get settled and I'll be back in just a moment to take your drink orders."

"Thank you, Ella," Clarke said kindly to the girl as she retreated to the packed bar.

Bellamy pulled out Clarke's chair for her and she gave him a surprised, pleased look and a, "Thank you, Paris."

"Paris? That's what you're going with?" Bellamy questioned. He certainly wasn't complaining. It was a nickname that was more meaningful than just a shortening of his name.

"I think so," Clarke said. "Although I do like Alex. Then Al for short."

"You have a nickname for a nickname?"

"Mm hmm," Clarke said, picking up a menu. "I need a couple days to decide, or I could just use both."

"Alright, let me know once you've got it figured out."

Bellamy realized he couldn't seem to wipe the grin off his face, even if he tried. This was so unlike him, to be almost giddy. He watched Clarke examine her menu over the top of his own, her eyes tracing back and forth across the page.

"Jucy Lucy? Why's it spelled like that? What even is it?"

"It's spelled like that because Matt's is the original creator, so they spelled it J-U-C-Y so people know it's the real deal, and any spelled J-U-I-C-Y are knock offs."

"Oh," Clarke said. "It's a hamburger?"

Bellamy laughed at her face. "No, it's a cheeseburger. And it's not just any cheeseburger. What makes it special is that the cheese is on the inside," Bellamy explained, pointing to a picture on the front of the menu which depicted the oozing patty.

"But- why?" Clarke looked perplexed and faintly amused.

"I dunno. But I do know that it is quintessentially Minnesotan."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Take my word for it? Oh no, you're going to try it. And you'll love it."

She raised a brow, as if to say, 'Oh really?'

Ella, the waitress, returned with her pad of paper and a sweet smile, which was equally directed between the two, which Bellamy appreciated.

"Alright, can I get you something with something to drink? We have Angry Orchard, Grain Belt Premium, Bell's Two Hearted Ale, Fulton Lonely Blonde and Blue Moon on tap, and domestic beers in bottles, or coke products."

"Uh I'll just have a water, please." Clarke said politely, looking at Bellamy with a raised brow, clearly wondering whether he was going to get an alcoholic beverage.

"I'll do a Coke."

"Sure, thing, I'll be right back with that," Ella said and whisked off again.

"Forgot your fake?" Clarke asked.

"No, uh. Not much of a draft guy."

"What? You like IPAs or something?"

Bellamy wasn't sure what Clarke was getting at, which made him a bit uncomfortable.

"Just, not in the mood for beer tonight, I guess."

"Hmm. I don't mind, if you drink, so don't think you can't-"

"No, it's not that Clarke," Bellamy said firmly and Clarke stopped mid sentence, her mouth still open.

"Okay."

"And anyway, I don't even have a fake ID."

"You don't?" She seemed shocked. Bellamy felt his lips twitch, then he realized that Clarke still didn't know how old he was. Was that what she was getting at? He had told her that he was a bit older than the typical college freshman, but she didn't know the number.

"No, I mean, I used to, but even then I didn't really use it. You have to have friends to go out with."

"Oh!" she chastised. "Don't even try and tell me you didn't have friends."

He smiled at her as she shook her head. "I had a few friends."

"Of course you did. Who wouldn't want to be friends with the great Bellamy Alexander?" She teased, throwing the title he'd used earlier that evening back at him.

"No one."

"Exactly."

"Alright, here you are," Ella placed their drinks down on the table and pulled out a couple of paper wrapped straws from her apron. "Ready to order or do you need a few more minutes?"

"No, we're ready," Bellamy answered quickly before Clarke could. "We'll do two Jucy Lucys and an order of fries."

"Good choice! I'll put the order in for you right away." She picked up the menus and slipped off to the next table.

"Bellamy!"

"What?" He said innocently, sliding his Coke across the table. A second later, he was hit in between the eyes with a straw wrapper.

His head snapped up to see Clarke, looking smug, as she lowered the straw from her lips.

"Hey now!"

"Huh? Did you see that? Someone must have thrown that at you? How rude!" Clarke turned around in her chair, peering over her shoulder as if to spot the imaginary perpetrator.

Bellamy shook his head and Clarke turned back around with a shrug and put her straw into her water.

"That was crazy. Let me just say that people back in Oregon would never have dared to be so crass."

"Crass? Minnesota is the nicest state in the nation. Have you not heard our slogan? People literally say, 'Minnesota Nice'."

"Hmm. Guess not," Clarke's eyes were bright, clearly she was enjoying teasing Bellamy and he didn't mind it one bit. It had been years since he'd bantered back and forth with anyone like this.

"Well, you'll just have to get out more."

"I s'pose I will."

They both took long drinks of their beverages and took in the restaurant. The atmosphere was warm and surprisingly family friendly for a bar. People chatted, leaning against the walls with pints of amber beer in their hands while a couple of young boys wove their way between the adults' legs, playing a game of tag.

"Thanks for agreeing to do something tonight," Clarke spoke up, drawing Bellamy's attention from a guy at the bar who looked oddly familiar.

"Of course, Princess," Clarke smiled at the nickname.

"So, tell me, Alex. If you don't have a fake anymore, how do you get into bars?"

"Well, I told you, I'm older than the usual freshman."

"You're already 21?" Clarke looked a bit confused, which made Bellamy reluctant to say what he needed to say next.

"Yeah, I actually just turned 23 in July."

Clarke's eyes widened almost comically, and Bellamy would have laughed if he wasn't scared about what she was going to say next.

"You're 23?"

"Uh, yep."

"Huh," She sat back in her chair, expression changing from flabbergasted to reserved. Bellamy could feel his heart thumping in his chest. Why had he said anything? What if Clarke got scared of him now? Shut up, it's not going to matter. She won't care. But what if she does?

"Yeah, I'm five years older than Octavia, almost six really. She won't be nineteen until May."

"I see," Clarke said.

"When's your birthday?" Bellamy asked, sensing Clarke's uncertainty on what to say next. She leaned forward again, but before she could answer Bellamy sporadically shouted out, "Wait, let me guess. I've got a thing for guessing birthdays."

"Okay, have at it, Paris," Clarke said and Bellamy was instantly soothed by the nickname. She wasn't going to shy away from him.

"Hmm," Bellamy made a show of studying Clarke from all angles, sticking out his tongue, and even holding his hands out as if to measure her face. She giggled and asked,

"Is this scientific?"

"Oh, absolutely. Proven time and time again." Bellamy sat up straight and said, "October."

Clarke's eye widened and he knew he'd gotten it right.

"No way. What day?"

Bellamy put on a thoughtful expression. October had been purely a guess. A lucky one.

"October 8th."

Clarke looked shocked.

"No way, I actually got it right?" Bellamy asked.

"Nearly! October 9th."

"Aww, so close!" Bellamy rapped his fist on the table, but Clarke still seemed impressed.

"Who told you?"

"What?"

"There is no way you guessed so close. That's insane."

"What did I say? I've got a talent."

"I guess so."

"So it would be October 9th, 1999?"

Clarke nodded. "Yep, ten nine 'ninety-nine."

Bellamy smiled. "That has a nice ring to it. Ten nine ninety-nine."

"It does."

Clarke tried to guess the date of Bellamy's birthday, but was way off. It was July 3rd, 1995. Then they talked about college football, and Bellamy was thoroughly impressed with Clarke's knowledge about the teams. She was chattering on about Oregon Ducks and the Oregon State University Beavers when Ella brought out their meal.

"Here you are," She said, setting down the plates. "Is this your guys' first date?"

Bellamy's eyes flashed up to the waitress as Clarke cleared her throat.

"Oh no, we're just friends," Bellamy said with a smile.

"Ope, sorry! I just assumed, I heard you guys played the 'guess my birthday' game."

"It's no problem. Thanks, Ella."

"Sure thing, enjoy and let me know if you need anything." Ella hurried away, and Bellamy noted a bit of embarrassment on her face. He felt a bit bad, but perhaps she shouldn't have said something like that. Bellamy looked over to Clarke, seeing immediately the flush in her cheeks due to her pale skin.

"Is that how you guys show your 'Minnesota Nice'? By getting into other people's business?" she questioned.

Bellamy cringed, hoping this wouldn't ruin the good time they had been having.

"Usually, no. Sorry if that made you uncomfortable"

"Don't worry about it," Clarke reached out and grabbed a fry. "These are good!" She said, pushing the incident behind them. Bellamy smiled appreciatively. Clarke was so sweet and easygoing, he didn't even know why he had questioned her in the first place. There was something about her that was so unlike any other girl he had ever met. He mentally berated himself for how cliche that sounded, but God help him, it was true.

"Are you meant to cut it in half?" She asked, picking up her burger.

"No! Half the fun is seeing if you can bite into it far enough to reach the cheese on your first try," Bellamy said, picking up his own Jucy Lucy and demonstrating, practically unhinging his jaw to take a massive bite out of the burger. Clarke looked on, clearly amused and Bellamy turned the burger towards her, so she could see the molten cheese oozing from the patty.

"Good work," she said through a wide smile. "I don't know if I can, but I'll give it my best shot."

Bellamy tried not to choke on the absurd amount of food in his mouth as Clarke took a huge bite from her own burger. The way her eyes lit up when she turned it for Bellamy to see that she had achieved the goal cemented it for him. Clarke was so unlike anyone else he had met, and all in the best ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay this chapter got a little bit longer than I originally intended. It is definitely the longest chapter thus far. I didn't even have this as part of my overall plan, but I want to challenge myself and work on dialogue, because I feel that is one of the weak points in my writing, so I set out to do just that. And then I just kept going, because I kept thinking of more and more things I wanted Clarke and Bellamy to talk about, so it just kept growing and growing.
> 
> I hope it doesn't seem too scattered, but I thought we would all enjoy a little bit of Bellarke fluff.
> 
> Also, I don't know if The 100 has real birthdays or middle names for the characters, so I just made up my own. If there are official ones, please excuse my fabricated names and dates.
> 
> I would appreciate any feedback you have to give about my dialogue, whether it be criticism or praise, as my main ambition is to better myself as a writer.
> 
> And I just want to give a huge thank you to my wonderful beta, kyliEisMC2. Huge round of applause, you help me out so much and I will never say thank you enough.
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> -Birch66724


	23. Chapter 23

"Bellamy, I am not going to let you pay for it all!" Clarke protested, fumbling in her back pocket for her folded money she'd stashed there before they'd left.

"It's 26 dollars, Princess. Relax," Bellamy said, sliding his crisp bills onto the plate with the check.

"I'll pay half," Clarke insisted, trying to smooth out a crumpled ten dollar bill. Once she was satisfied, she looked to see Bellamy sending the waitress off with a smile. He looked back at her, victorious.

Clarke groaned, but she couldn't stay mad at him. Not that she was really even mad in the first place, but it just wasn't fair of Bellamy to pay for her dinner.

"No. I ate most of the food anyway. And you got a water!"

"Fine. But I'm leaving the tip."

Bellamy narrowed his eyes as if he didn't like that either, but Clarke fixed him with a glare and he held his hands up in surrender.

"What's 20 percent?" Clarke asked.

Bellamy frowned. "Don't you just move the decimal back one place?" He made a swooping motion with his finger in the air.

"No… that would be 10 percent."

"Then just double it! So, moving the decimal would be two-sixty, and then double, would be four… and sixty and sixty is one-eighty, no twenty, so five and…"

Clarke couldn't contain her amusement as Bellamy's attempt at mental math. They way he held up his hands and stared into the air, as if visualizing the numbers written there and he was moving them around. His dark brows knit together and he thought aloud while tendrils of black hair curled on his forehead.

"What? C'mon Princess, you know I suck at math." Bellamy dropped his hands to the table, defeated.

"You do not! You're just more of a visual thinker, and that's not a bad thing."

"I think my Algebra professor would disagree," he grumbled and Clarke smiled, patting his hand across the table. He looked up at her with puppy eyes again. They were much better this time, when he wasn't trying so hard.

"I'm sure she's just a hardass."

"Yeah, you're right."

"I'll just leave the ten, she was nice." Clarke decided, trying to crease the bill in the middle so it would stand up, but it was too flimsy from the mistreatment it had suffered in her pocket.

"Yeah, she was. Apart from her presumptuous comments."

"Comment," Clarke corrected. "She only said one thing. And you know, it isn't her fault, what was she supposed to assume?" As the words left her mouth, Clarke didn't know why she said them.

"Oh?" Bellamy said as he stood from his seat.

"I guess," Clarke said, using the opportunity to turn away from him, because she knew her face was getting red again, for what? The thirtieth time tonight? Damn pale skin. Why couldn't she have Raven's dark, tan skin, or even Bellamy's freckles to blanket her cheeks?

The bar had gotten a bit roudier as the night progressed, single men replacing the families who had been eating dinner together. The kid's menus and crayons were replaced by wine lists and bottles of Natural Lite. It was starting to set Clarke on edge a bit.

"Let's get outta here, Princess," Bellamy said, stepping in front of her as a pair of guys stumbled past, one of them lurching towards Clarke with a look. That was until he saw Bellamy… then his expression quickly sobered and he scampered off to where his buddy was laughing his ass off.

"Yeah," Clarke agreed, feeling soothed when Bellamy draped a hand on her shoulder and guided her towards the door.

"Have a good night, you two!" Ella called from the hostess stand in the entrance, and Clarke smiled kindly at her.

"You too," Bellamy said, pulling open the door. The reprieve of cool night air washed over Clarke's face like a wave, making her close her eyes and take a deep breath, filling her lungs and cooling her from the inside out.

She opened her eyes to see Bellamy watching her.

"Gettin' a little stuffy in there?" He asked with a slight smile.

"You could say that," Clarke agreed. "But the city doesn't smell as good as it did back home."

"I bet not."

"It smells like cigarettes and gasoline and booze."

"Maybe because we're standing outside a bar?" Bellamy suggested and Clarke shot him a look as they started walking.

"You might have a point."

"Might?"

Clarke groaned and picked up their pace. Bellamy followed her lead.

"What's the hurry, you got a hot date tonight?" He joked, then he paused. Clarke felt a jab of panic, then one of guilt. She absolutely hated the way Bellamy tiptoed around her.

She glanced back at him, her eyes tracing the way the shadows lay over his face. She could see his earnest brown eyes and pinched brows.

"Nope," she said, turning away from him. "I just got done with one."

"O-oh," Bellamy said, returning to her side. Clarke definitely heard the way his voice faltered, and she was glad for the streak of confidence she'd had that allowed her to say the quip, even if she couldn't look Bellamy in the eyes when she said it.

"Just joking, of course," she said before an uncomfortable silence could settle over them.

"Yeah, I know."

"But, it was pretty cool how you made that dude practically piss himself," Clarke giggled at the memory of a few minutes ago.

"Who wouldn't be scared of guns like these?"

"Guns?" Clarke's head whipped around, concerned, only to be met with the sight of Bellamy flexing his biceps. He immediately started laughing, pointing at her.

"Clarke, you thought I meant real guns? What, do you think I carry a .50 Desert Eagle in my waistband or something?"

"I don't know what you do! Maybe you're more of a Glock-19 in an ankle holster kind of guy." She defended herself weakly, trying to put on an offended expression. Bellamy was slapping his knee like this was the funniest thing that'd ever happened to him, so Clarke whacked him in the chest.

He sprung upright and asked, "What? Want to feel my guns?"

"No you weirdo! I want to go home."

"Fine. Buzzkill." Bellamy scoffed and Clarke hit him again, but retracting her hand, she felt as though it probably hurt her more than it did him. He was rather well muscled, despite the lack of exercise Clarke had seen in his life.

"I am not a buzzkill. You're just weird."

"Call it what you will," he said loftily and Clarke side eyed him and challenged;

"Where'd you even get muscles from? Steroids? Because I've never seen you work out once."

"Oh Princess, there is a lot you don't know about me."

"Really? How mysterious."

"Uh huh. I fit that saying, you know."

"Saying?" Clarke questioned.

"Yeah, you know, tall, dark, and mysterious."

"I'm pretty sure that it's tall, dark and handsome," Clarke corrected.

Bellamy grinned. "Oh, you think I'm handsome, Princess?"

Clarke turned to him, taking in his smug look, realizing she'd fallen into the trap he'd set for her.

"You brat," Clarke scoffed.

"I believe I asked you a question," He pressed and Clarke felt her stomach flutter. As soon as she felt it, she shoved it down. Catching feelings for this guy, who was twenty-three, who was her roommate's brother, who was the only one who knew her secrets, who lived in the dorm right below hers, was not something she should be doing right now. Only, the answer that left her mouth wasn't helping the facts she'd just convinced herself of.

"I think you know that answer to that, Paris."

Bellamy didn't respond and Clarke kept looking straight ahead, noticing for the first time how dark and shadowed the streets were. It felt like someone had turned on the adrenaline drip into her IV as she became hyper aware of the alleyways and black recesses, and she was already high strung.

A swift breeze blew around the corner of a building and Clarke shivered, crossing her arms firmly across her chest and gripping the backs of her upper arms with her hands.

"Cold?" Bellamy asked.

"A bit chilly," She replied, then added, "But it's your fault, because you told me I could dress like this. You didn't tell me to bring a jacket!"

"Oh okay, just blame all your problems on me!" Bellamy said, returning to the playful back-and-forth banter they'd shared all evening.

"Well, it's someone's fault, and it sure as heck isn't mine," Clarke replied.

"Hmm, you know, if I had a jacket, I would do the polite thing and offer it to you, but you didn't remind me to bring mine either."

"Chivalry isn't dead, look at that."

" 'Course not. There's still good guys left in the world, Clarke."

Clarke looked up to Bellamy as he smiled softly down on her. It was strange how their conversations could slip so easily from teasing to serious, and Clarke's emotions often couldn't keep up.

"I hope so." She finally responded, unsure of what else to say.

"I know so." Bellamy said firmly, and they walked on.

Thoughts were swirling like a windstorm in Clarke's head, and she was trying to reach out and grab hold of them, make them tangible and understandable, but they all slipped through her fingers, leaving nothing but residual feelings. Confusion, anger, security, guilt, exhaustion.

One moment she had been laughing on the street with Bellamy, and the next… she didn't know where she was. It was like walls had risen up around her and suddenly, she was trapped in her own dark mind. She stumbled blindly, feeling like only a vessel for the endless barage of emotions thundering through her.

Clarke was so caught up in her own head that she didn't realize Bellamy was no longer at her side as she stepped off the curb onto the street.

A hand reached out and grabbed her shoulder and Clarke choked on a scream as she was yanked backwards.

"Clarke!" Bellamy's voice broke through to her. What was going on? She shoved against the arms holding her, but they were strong, unrelenting. Her eyes felt like they were lagging behind the rest of her head as she tried to look around.

A car flew past, mere inches from Clarke, so close the acrid wave of air washed over her and sent her hair fluttering around like it was caught in a gale.

"Jesus, Clarke!"

Clarke scrambled back from the road, watching the red taillights of the car disappear around the corner with the squeal of tires. The arms that held her back no longer felt like constraints, but a safety net that had snagged her from yet another near fatal event.

"Clarke are you alright? Shit. Come 'ere." Bellamy pulled Clarke away from the curb, his arms wrapped securely around her whole torso. She clutched his forearm and couldn't tear her eyes from the spot where the car disappeared.

"Sit down for a second," Bellamy said, pulling her down and she sat nearly on his lap before he shifted her to the side, though her legs remained draped over his. One arm remained wrapped over her shoulders, holding her upright. Was that her heart racing, or Bellamy's?

Clarke was struggling to comprehend what just happened. Surely it had taken only ten seconds, but her brain was struggling to slog through the series of sights and sounds, to piece them together like a patchwork quilt that would explain the event.

"Clarke?" Bellamy's voice penetrated the hazy fog and she turned to him. His face was all unmasked concern and fear. His dark features shone oddly in the yellow glow of the streetlamp on the corner, his eyes glowing a sort of honey color.

"Hey, hey, it's alright." He said softly, and it was like the dark walls vanished and Clarke could reenter her own mind. She was aware of the way her body was shaking, she was aware of the way she was gasping for breath, she was aware of the way she was still clinging to Bellamy's wrist like it was the last tether to this planet.

"How many times are you going to save my life?" she choked out. Bellamy's lopsided smile crept onto his face and he hugged Clarke closer to him.

"As many times as necessary," He said into her hair before releasing her slightly so he could look at her face. Clarke didn't want him to release her.

"Thanks. I- I don't know what just happened."

"Some jackass came flying around the corner in his Dodge Charger and nearly took you out. Who the hell drives like that in the city? What a fucking idiot."

Clarke was surprised at the heat in Bellamy's tone. She'd never heard him curse like that before.

"I should have been looking where I was going. I was so.."

"That was not your fault, Princess. That dumbass was going at least thirty around that corner. He didn't even slow down."

Clarke took a shuddering inhalation and bit her lip as she attempted to slow her racing heart. Contrary to her attempts, it beat faster, not in response to her near death experience, but to the proximity to her rescuer. His woodsy scent washed over her and she could feel the rise and fall of Bellamy's chest against her side.

Clarke pulled her legs off his lap and Bellamy released her, slightly startled by her sudden movement.

"Y'alright?"

"Yeah...I just want to get home now," Clarke said, clutching the underside of the bench seat and staring at a crack in the concrete. Her shoulders felt freezing in the absence of Bellamy's arm.

"Sure, c'mon Clarke." Bellamy stood and offered her his hand. She looked up into his face as she took his outstretched hand.

"Thanks again," Clarke said.

"You're wearing out the word again," Bellamy warned and Clarke groaned.

"Someday, I'll pay you back for everything," she said earnestly. Bellamy only leaned his head slightly to one side and smiled softly, and Clarke felt as if she couldn't drop his hand, even now that she was on her feet.

So, she interlaced her fingers into Bellamy's and said; "Would you mind keeping me from walking into oncoming traffic again, Alexander?"

"It would be my pleasure… Wait! You never told me your middle name, Clarke."

"I've got to keep at least some secrets," she protested.

"Hmphf. I'll figure it out."

"Good luck."

"Why? Is it some weird name? Not like Marie or Anne or Mary?"

"I dunno," Clarke said as they reached the other side of the street.

Bellamy squeezed her hand tighter as he made his next guess. "It's Rose, isn't it? Clarke Rose Griffin, that sounds nice."

Clarke shook her head, too absorbed in the feeling of Bellamy's thumb gently brushing along her pointer finger to reply aloud. She didn't think he even realized he was doing it, rubbing his calloused knuckle along the smooth white skin, but she was captivated by the sensation.

"I'll ask Raven. She'll know, I bet." Bellamy decided.

"I don't think she does, actually."

"Damn. I'll just have to get you to tell me."

"Another time."

"Another time," Bellamy relented. "Still want to go to the game tomorrow?"

"Absolutely," Clarke replied. "Do you think it's too late to get tickets?"

"Nah, they have a reserved section for students. I'll get it figured out in the morning, don't worry about it."

"Thanks. Will Octavia want to go? I'm sure Raven will. I don't really see Monty and Jasper as sports fans, but maybe. You should ask them. And Harper'll go if Monty does. And what about Miller and Murphy? I bet they already have tickets, they seem very into sports." Clarke started rambling to distract herself from the stifling closeness of Bellamy. In all truthfulness, she wouldn't be disappointed if it ended up being just her and Bellamy, but she figured Bellamy would want to invite everybody.

"I'm sure," Bellamy said lightly. Clarke looked up at him but he stared straight ahead.

"I'll ask. Let you know later," Clarke said softly. They were back onto the campus now, where the streetlights were a bit closer together and the blue emergency assistance posts lit up each corner. Students were milling around, some late night studiers and some early partiers. There was no doubt that the designated campus area felt a lot safer than the city surrounding it, but the darkness and unfamiliar figures still unsettled Clarke. She didn't want to let go of Bellamy's hand, and he didn't seem to mind.

"You know Clarke, I was thinking…" Bellamy started.

Clarke felt her chest seize. "What?"

"They have a lot of- I don't know what they call them, counselors, I guess, on campus. They say they're free and confidential to all students. Maybe that would help you? To go talk to someone about...everything."

Clarke felt a shiver travel down her spine and the mere thought of telling anyone about what had happened. It was quickly followed by a sharp jab of… was it betrayal? Why did she feel betrayed by Bellamy? Surely he was only trying to help… that was all he'd even been doing.

"No thank you," Clarke said tightly.

"That's fine. I just wanted to put it out there, so you could think about it."

His hand felt more like a vice than a comfort now, and Clarke could see Frontier Hall up ahead, so she pulled free. He seemed reluctant to let her go, gazing down at her while Clarke refused to return his look.

"Thanks, but I'm fine." Clarke said coldly, crossing her arms tightly across her chest.

"Okay."

Was this what she got for depending on Bellamy so much? Of course it was. She was simply too much for him to handle, so he was trying to off load her to some campus counselor, who was probably just another student in an internship position trying to gain some free experience. It was just a nicer way of saying, 'Clarke, you're way too much work, figure it out.'"

Even the thought of those words crossing Bellamy's lips were enough to make Clarke's knees tremble. He had been her biggest support, her confidant, her best friend these past two weeks, and she knew she depended on him too much. Now he had come to the same realization and it broke Clarke all over again.

They didn't speak until the elevator doors opened onto the fourth floor. Bellamy walked Clarke down the hall, which made her feel even worse. He was too nice of a guy to just ditch her, now she'd wrangled him in with guilt and pity, which was the last thing she wanted.

"Thanks for supper. I'll pay you back sometime."

"Don't worry about it," Bellamy said, and the look in his eyes was enough to make Clarke doubt what she'd been thinking about for a second, but only for a second.

She looked down at the door. "Let me know about the tickets, or if you don't want to go, that's cool."

"What? Of course I want to go!" Bellamy said quickly.

"Okay," Clarke said. "Goodnight, Paris." She had to use the nickname at least one more time. She'd just come up with it, afterall.

"Goodnight, Princess. See you tomorrow."

Clarke slowly let herself into her dorm as she listened to Bellamy's retreating footsteps, muffled on the carpet. Maybe she was wrong? He seemed pretty enthusiastic about the game tomorrow. But, they wouldn't be alone, and what boy would say no to a football game? That was all it was.

The dorm was dark and quiet. The air conditioning hummed from somewhere in the wall and Raven's little bedside clock ticked away, one second after the next.

Double checking the bathroom and the adjoining dorm, Clarke confirmed she was alone; all of her friends were out doing normal, college things. She sat down on her bed and mulled over her evening. It had been a good night, great even, until the last ten minutes.

Clarke showered and brushed her teeth before snuggling into bed with her laptop to watch a movie. She must have dozed off, because she woke up when Raven returned, Octavia and Harper in tow. Clarke wondered how they'd all ended up together, because she'd thought they all went out in separate ways, but it didn't matter, she needed to talk to all of them.

They all gave their enthusiastic agreement to go to the football game tomorrow, and Harper even produced a couple of tubes of face paint in the maroon and gold colors of their school.

Clarke texted Bellamy, but he never replied. She assumed he'd read the message and felt no need to reply. The message didn't really warrant a response she supposed. He deserved to go to sleep, he was probably worn out from catering to Clarke all evening.

She listened halfhearted as the girls retolded their night's experiences from where they had settled around on Clarke's bed. Raven and Octavia had gone to that bar where The Grounder's dodgeball team had invited them to the precious weekend, but they wouldn't serve them, even with their fakes. Octavia complained about it but Raven just shrugged, saying she'd be zonked out right now if she'd been drinking anyway. Harper had gone with Monty to the Science Museum of Minnesota, then out to dinner once they were kicked out of the exhibit at closing time.

Raven teased Harper until she blushed and Clarke smiled at her friends, thankful they didn't ask what she had done, assuming she'd just spent the night in. She knew she couldn't lie to them, and she didn't want to incur Octavia's wrath upon Bellamy or rouse Raven's suspicions even more, or Clarke would suffer the same treatment Harper had.

While Raven tried to beat down the bathroom door after Octavia got in the shower before Raven could brush her teeth, Clarke fell into a fitful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello folks! My apologies for how long it has been since my last update... Life has been CRAZY hectic lately and writing has had to take the back burner in my life for the time being. :( I hope that is understandable, and by no means does it mean I will not continue this story. Rest assured there are many more chapters to come. Stay safe and healthy everyone, and, as always,
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> -Birch66724


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